| LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.! 
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FITS" 13 WOOL 



SHEEP HTJSBANDET. 



BY HENRY S. RANDALL LL. D, 



OF CORTLAND VILLAGE, N. Y. 



READ BEFORE THE 



NEW YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



FEBRUARY 12th, 1862. 



From Transactions New York State Agricultural Society, 1861. 



& 



a vy ® f Ce "£> # 



' ty °f Washing 



ALBANY: 

PRINTED BY C. VAN BENTHUYSEN. 
1862. 



^18 



FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



In rising to read this paper on the sheep of our country, pre- 
pared at the request of your President, I cannot fail to have it 
forcibly recalled to my memory that twenty-five years ago this 
very month, at the annual meeting of the old New York State 
Agricultural Society, in this city, I was appointed chairman of a 
committee of breeders to draw up a report on the same subject ; 
and that, twenty-four years ago, I read that report before the 
Society.* 

On that occasion I was aided by the far riper experience of 
some of the most eminent breeders of our State, and might there- 
fore without presumption, embody their knowledge in respect to 
breeds with which my own acquaintance was limited. 

Having no such assistance now, I shall confine my descriptions 
chiefly to those varieties of which I can speak from an ample per- 
sonal experience. These include the Merinos which, at various 
periods, have been imported from Spain, France and Germany 
into the United States. 

The inquiries of your President embraced the following topics : 
The origin of the Merino ; its varieties ; its introduction into the 
United States ; the circumstances which have affected its success; 
the comparative profitableness of its varieties ; the expediency of 
crossing between varieties and the effects of in-and-in breeding ; 
the proper mode of selecting a flock ; the art of breeding ; the 
present course of breeding in the United States ; and suggestions 
as to the future of the fine wool husbandry in our country. 

* It was published in the Cultivator (Albany) March, 1S38, and extracts from it in the 
present Society's Transactions, 1841. 



The Spanish Merino. 

The origin of this animal is involved in obscurity. The com- 
monly received account is, that Columella, a Roman who resided 
near Cadiz in the reign of Claudius, coupled fine wool Tarentian 
(Italian) ewes with wild rams brought from Barbary, and thus 
laid the foundation of the breed ; that some thirteen centuries 
after, Pedro IV. of Castile, improved it by a fresh importation of 
rams from the same country ; and that two hundred years later 
still, Cardinal Ximenes a third time repeated this ameliorating 
cross ; — from which period, we are left to infer, the breed became 
established about as it was found when it first began to attract 
the special attention of foreign nations in the seventeenth cen- 
tury. All the early varieties of Africa had long, straight, hairy 
wool, like the present long-wooled sheep of England, and no 
writer, ancient or modern, has pretended that the rams imported 
from that country into Spain, were any different in this parti- 
cular. How recurring crosses between such animals and fine 
wooled ewes should have commenced, improved, and finally fixed 
the characteristics of a breed like the Merino, is a problem which 
admits of no rational solution to a practical sheep breeder.* This 
pedigree is probably entitled to about as much confidence as that 
which the Greek poets gave to the wonderful ram which bore the 
" Golden Fleece." He, according to this very respectable autho- 
rity, was got by the sea-god Neptune, dam the nymph Theophane. 

The only well settled facts on this subject — and fortunately 
they are quite sufficient for all practical purposes — are, that at a 
period anterior to the Christian era, fine wooled sheep abounded 
in Spain ; that they were preserved and made themselves heard 
of in the channels of trade and the domestic arts through all the 
conquests, re-conquests, and other sanguinary convulsions of that 
kingdom ; that they were, or gradually ripened into, an exclusive 
breed unique in its characteristics, and essentially unlike all other 
breeds in the world. 

When the Merinos of Spain first attracted the observation of 

♦Strabo, who was a contemporary of our Savior, and who consequently lived a generation 
earlier than Columella, says that the fine cloths worn by the Romans in his time were manu- 
factured from wool brought from Truditania, in Spain. Pliny, himself Governor of Spain, 
writing just after Columella's time, describes several fine wooled varieties in that country 
which must have existed there a long time anterior to Columella. The Barbary crosses 
undoubtedly were made with, or formed, the Chunah or long-wooled breed of Spain, which is 
altogether distinct from the Merino. 



other nations, they were found scattered over most portions of 
their native country, divided into provincial varieties which 
exhibited considerable differences ; and these again were sepa- 
rated into great permanent flocks or cabanas, as the Spaniards 
termed them, which had so long been kept distinct from each 
other and subjected to special lines of breeding, that they had 
acquired the character of sub-v ar ieties or families. 

Varieties and Sub-varieties in Spain. 

The first division recognized in Spain was into Transhumantes 
or traveling flocks, and Estantes or stationary flocks. The first 
were regarded as the most valuable. They were mostly owned 
by the King and some of the principal nobles and clergy, who at 
an early period fastened on the kingdom a code of regulations 
which sacrificed every other agricultural interest for the conven- 
ience of the proprietors of these sheep.* 

The system of Spanish sheep husbandry is a curious and not 
uninstructive leaf from the records of the past, but does not come 
within the scope of this paper. It will be found described with 
sufficient fullness by Mr. Livingston, whose valuable " Essay on 
Sheep," now recognized authority throughout the world, was laid 
before the New York State Agricultural Society in 1809."f 

* These will be found described in detail by Lasteyrie, Livingston and other writers. The 
sheep were driven from the southern provinces in April or May, according to the weather, to 
the mountains in the north of Spain, a distance of about four hundred miles, and driven back 
again in the autumn, generally leaving the mountains towards the close of September and 
through the month of October. The Tribunal (Consejo de la Mesta) which both made and 
administered the laws which regulated their transit, was composed of the rich and powerful 
flockmasters. The following remarks are from Lasteyrie's most valuable Treatise on Merino 
Sheep : 

" A Spanish writer, Jorvellanes, in a memoir addressed to the King of Spain, says ' the 
corps of Junadines (proprietors of flocks) enjoy an enormous power, and have, by the force of 
sophisms and intrigues, not only engrossed all the pastures of the kingdom, but have made 
the cultivators abandon their most fertile lands : thus they have banished the stationary flocks, 
ruined agriculture, and depopulated the country.' It is easily conceived that five millions of 
sheep traversing the kingdom in almost its whole extent, for whom the cultivators are com- 
pelled to leave a road through their vineyards and best cultivated lands of not less than ninety 
yards wide, and for whom, besides, large commons must be left ; I say, it is easily conceived 
that such a flock must greatly contribute to the depopulation of the country, and that the 
revenue that the King draws by the duty on wool is snatched from the bread of his people." 

1 1 have thus termed the Society, because it will convey a more correct impression to many 
readers of the present day, than to give it its actual designation, which was, " The Society 
for the Promotion of Useful Arts." It was the lineal ancestor of our present organization. 

Robert R. Livingston, LL. D., Secretary of Foreign Affairs under the American Articles of 
Confederation, Chancellor of New York, &c. Ac, went as American Minister Plenipotentiary 



Livingston makes the following territorial classification of the 
Merinos in Spain at the opening of the present century : " Cas- 
tile and Leon has the largest with the finest coats. Those of 
Soria are small, with very fine wool. Those of Valencia, which, 
like the last, do not travel, have fine wool, but a very short 
staple." 

The Leonese Transhumantes, considered the best sheep of 
Spain, were the only ones which ever attracted much foreign 
notice, and they composed the principal importations into the 
United States. Some of the most esteemed families of them were 
thus briefly characterized by Lasteyrie, one of the best informed* 
and most reliable writers, early or late, in respect to the Merino : 

" The Escurial breed is supposed to possess the finest wool of all the 
' migratory sheep. The Guadeloupe have the most perfect form, and are 
likewise celebrated for the quantity and quality of their wool. The 
Paulars bear much wool of a fine quality; but they have a more evident 
■ enlargement behind the ears, and a greater degree of throatiness, and 
their lambs have a coarse, hairy appearance, which is succeeded by 
excellent wool. The lambs of the Infantados have the same hairy coat 
when young. The Negretti are the largest and strongest of all the 
Spanish traveling sheep."t 

The Merinos, as they appeared as a race at the opening of this 
century, are thus described by Livingston : 

to France in 1801. He there gave much attention to the Merinos preparatory to an importa- 
tion of them. He is an able, and in matters of fact, extremely reliable, writer. He was one 
of the most spirited and influential agricultural improvers in our country, and is never to be 
forgotten as the patron and coadjutor of Fulton. 

* Lasteyrie traveled into every country in Europe, where the Merinos had been introduced, 
to asoertain how the experiment succeeded and to observe the effect of the different climates 
and systems of management on the animal. 

•f Livingston's descriptions coincide with these, except that he says that the Paulars have 
" similar fleeces" with the Guadeloupes, and are "longer bodied." 
f These celebrated flocks were the property of individuals or of religious orders. The Escu- 
i rial flock belonged to the King, until Philip II gave it to the friars of a convent attached 
' to the Escurial palace. The Paulars were purchased by the Prince of Peace of the Carthusian 
| friars of Paular. The Negrettis were owned by the Conde Campo de Alange — the Infantados, 
Aqueirres, Montareos, etc., to the nobles of those names. 

Hon. William Jarvis, of Vermont, hereafter mentioned as a conspicuous importer of Merino 
sheep into the United States, in a letter to L. D. Gregory, which was re-published in Morrell's 
American Shepherd, (pp. 71-76,) describes the Spanish cabanas somewhat differently. But 
his opportunities for judging, good as they were, were not equal to those of Lasteyrie, and 
Mr. Jarvis wrote some years after he had seen any pure bred animals of the separate cabanas. 
Lasteyrie 's description is adopted by some eminent writers, familiar with the Spanish sheep 
near the opening of this century, and I do not remember to have seen it contradicted by any 
European author of reputation. Like all the descriptions of animals by writers of that day, 
it is, however, exceedingly meagre and vague. But I do not think the writers of that day 
considered the distinctions between a few of the best cabanas as of much importance — regard- 
irg them as about equal in value. 



"The race varies greatly in size and beauty in different parts of 
Spain. It is commonly rather smaller than the middle sized sheep of 
America. The body is compact, the legs short, the head long, the fore- 
head arched. The ram generally (but not invariably) carries very large 
spiral horns, has a fine eye and a bold step. The ewes have generally 
no horns. The wool of these sheep is so much finer and softer than the 
common wool, as to bear no sort of comparison with it; it is twisted 
and drawn together like a cork screw; its length is generally about 
three inches, but when drawn out it will stretch to nearly double that 
length. Though the wool is, when cleaned, extremely white, yet on the 
sheep it appears a yellowish or dirty-brown color, owing to the closeness 
of the coat, and the condensation of the perspiration on the extremities 
of the fleece. The wool commonly covers great part of the head, and 
descends to the hoof of the hind feet, particularly in young sheep; and 
it is also much more greasy than the wool of other sheep." 

To supply data which will enable any one curious on the sub- 
ject to make some practical comparisons between these sheep and 
their descendants in the United States, I select the following, 
from a more extensive table by Petri, who visited Spain in the 
early part of this century for the express purpose of examining its 
and I add similar admeasurements of American Merinos : 



NAMES OF FLOCKS. 



5 % 



& 






JNEGRETTI. 

Ram 

Ewe 

Infant ado. 

Ram 

Ewe 

Guadeloupe. 

Ram 

Ewe 

ESTANTES OF SlERRA DE SOMO 

Ram 

Ewe , 

Small Estantes. 

Ram 

Ewe •• 

American Merino. 

Ram • 

Ewe 



100A 
70 



ft. in. 
1 7 
1 5 

1 6 

1 5^ 

1 6 
1 2 

1 6 
1 2 

1 3 

1 1 

10 
10 
10 
11 



ft. in, 
2 2 
2 ] 



2 
2 1 

1 9 

1 6 

2 4 
2 4 
2 5 
2 3 



ft. in. 
4 6£ 
4 H 

4 7 
4 Z\ 

4 5 

3 11 

4 31 
4 

3 7| 

3 2 

3 11 

3 11| 

4 
3 11 



ft. in. 

4 14 

4 U 



4 2 
3 11 



4 5; 

3 9 

4 2j 
3 10" 



2 10 

4 4| 

4 H 

4 3 

4 I 



ft. in, 
1 3 
1 1 



1 

1 



1 

11 



8 

These weights and measures, except those of the American 
sheep,* are Austrian. The Austrian pound is equal to 1.037 lbs. 
avoirdupois ; the Austrian foot to 1.234 English feet. 

Mr; Livingston, in describing the Spanish Merino of his day as 
compact and short-legged, took for his standard of comparison, 
doubtless, the gaunt, tall sheep of America ; and Col. Humphreys' 
description, sent to the Massachusetts Society for promoting 
Agriculture, requires the same explanation. Most British wri- 
ters, with their eyes on their own mutton breeds, fall into the 
opposite extreme. Petri's measurements show that the Spanish 
sheep were far less compact than their American descendants, 
though they ran to no extraordinary excess in the opposite direc- 
tion. 

We should gather the impression from Livingston's remarks — 
and Humphreys expressly says — that they were broad chested. f 
Compared with other sheep, or their own descendants of the pre- 
sent day, this was quite otherwise. The concurrent testimony 
of both writers and observers who had more practical acquaint- 
ance with the points of an animal's carcass than either of the 
above distinguished gentlemen, as well as my own observations 
thirty years ago, when our own Merinos had been bred closely to 
the original model, show that the Merino of Spain was decidedly 

• The American Merino ewes were taken from one of my flocks composed of sheep of good 
medium size, and I think they were a little heavier than the average of the flock. They were 
weighed, &c, in Dec. 1861, and had been sheared only five months — so that their weights did 
not, like the Spanish, include full fleeces. They were in good ordinary condition, and no more. 
The same is true of the ram. He is a small, short animal for one of his family, but has great 
substance, and is specially prized for the uniformity of his offspring, for their low, broad, 
beautiful forms, and for the great length and thickness of their wool. His own fleece has 
reached to about 21 lbs. In other respects there was nothing unusual in the appearance or 
form of any of the four; and their shape, &c. would about correspond with that of the flock 
they were taken from, or that probably of any other prime full blood flock in the country. 
The ram was 25 inches high on the shoulder, the ewes about 23 inches each. I wish Petri 
had given the heights of the Spanish sheep. When the difference in weight is taken into 
account, it is remarkable that there should be no greater difference in the "circumference of 
the belly" between the Spanish and American sheep in the table ; and one would infer that a 
good portion of the weight of the former must be made up of a belly so disproportioned in size. 
But I have no doubt that Petri measured their circumference in full fleece and without any 
compression of the wool. I shall reserve any further comparisons until I describe the impro- 
ved American Merino. 

f « The neck short, the chest broad. The members more compact and thick than those of 
our former breed of sheep; and the carcass is thought to have smaller bones and to be more 
rounded in the hinder part." — [Col. Humphreys' Letter to Mass. Society for promoting 
Agriculture. 



a narrow chested animal.* But what he thus lost in symmetry 
was made up, so far as room for the lungs and other viscera was 
concerned, by his great depth of carcass. In these respects he 
was to the English mutton breeds what the Spanish barb was to 
the thick winded English dray horse : and he exhibited a cor- 
responding superiority in locomotion and energy.f 

Mr. Livingston unquestionably wrote from a vague recollec- 
tion, or at least without making actual admeasurements, when 
he stated the length of the unstretched Spanish wool at three 
inches. The Spanish breeders intentionally kept the staple short 
enough to meet the demands of the broadcloth manufacturers of 
that day, and two inches, unstretched, would have been regarded 
as a long staple then, and is so still. All old Merino breeders 
concur in the statement that the Spanish wool has increased in 
length in this country, yet it ma}' be doubted whether a thorough 
bred sheep of this variety can be found in the United States, the 
wool of which, at one year's growth, averages three inches over 
the carcass. I never yet saw or heard of one. 

The fleece of the Spanish Merino was exceedingly dense, level 
on the surface, uniform as between animals of the same family, 
and even in quality in the individual. The sheep of the Escurial 
cabana were destitute of external " gum," (indurated yolk,) and 
therefore quite light colored. Most of the celebrated flocks, how- 
ever, had more of it, and were more or less dark — some as dark 
as the unhoused Merinos of the present day. The wool was free 
from indurated yolk within, and it opened with a fine lustre and 
the other general characteristics which still distinguish the breed. 

Gilbert, a French writer of great reputation, stated in a report 
to the National Institute of France, in 1796, that " all the wool 
of Spain he had examined, not excepting the prime Leonese, the 
most esteemed of any, appeared to contain much more jar than 
that of Rambouillet." This would imply that the best wools of 

* And it appears to me that the same fact is deducible from Petri's table. With the length, 
and belly circumference which he gives to them, they would far exceed the weights he gives, 
if they were as broad chested as their descendants. 

\ The Merino would travel almost twice as fast and more than four times as long as a mutton 
sheep, particularly in hot weather. Think of a great drove of ewes and lambs of any of the 
mutton varieties sweeping along eight or ten miles a day, for 400 miles twice each year, and 
kept on the most meagre pasturage during every trip ! The Spanish ram would readily van- 
quish in battle, an English ram of twice his size. In "bottom," "pluck" and hardiness 
there is no comparison between the breeds. 



10 

Spain exhibited this defect,* but Gilbert says " they pretend the 
best of the Spanish wool is not imported into France." 

The weight of the Spanish fleeces was placed by Livingston at 
8^ lbs. in the ram, and five lbs. in the ewe, which he stated 
lost half in washing. Youatt gives the average weight of the 
ram's fleece at half a pound less, but of the ewe's the same. The 
Spanish system of washing alluded to, was much more perfect 
than our own. Brook-washed, on the back, in the American way, 
the shrinkage would not have exceeded one-third. f 

These are but general averages, and do not indicate the weight 
of fleeces of prime animals. The King of England's flock of Ne- 
gretti's, about one hundred in number, yielded during five years 
(1798-1802) an annual average of 3||f pounds of brook-washed 
wool, and 2^|f pounds of wool scoured for manufacturing.! 

Some of the Spanish sheep first imported into the United States 
yielded still more wool, if well-preserved tradition can be cre- 
dited ; but I have not been able to find any precise records of 
weighing, except in relation to a dozen or two of them. Our 
early writers on such topics appear to have eschewed nothing so 
much as exact and definite facts. 

Youatt ascertained, by actual admeasurement, that the fibres 

* There has heen some confusion as to the use of the term "jar" in our country. I think 
the foreign writers do not mean by it that firmly rooted hair which projects from the wool on 
the thighs, necks, &c. of some sheep, but that sharp-pointed, shining hair which is found 
detached from the skin within the fleece, and usually much shorter than the wool. It becomes 
detached when the wool has partly grown. 

f If I have not made this distinction, in previously published papers on this subject, it was 
because I entirely overlooked the fact. The Spanish wools, after being shorn, are beaten on 
hurdles to remove loose dirt, then placed in a vat of hot water and stirred about five or six 
minutes, then put into the head of a trough or aqueduct of cold running water, and trampled 
on and rubbed by men's feet as they pass slowly through. They are next drained on an 
inclined plane and spread on the grass to dry. But four to seven per cent, of yolk is left in 
them. One-third of gross weight is the usual amount of deduction on our American unwashed 
wools, to put them on a par with our brook-washed wools. 

J The flock included a very small number of wethers (the number is not given) and no rams. 
To exhibit the sorting of the Spanish wools of that day, by the English mode, I subjoin the 
following table : 

Lbs. of wool Lbs. of Lbs. of Lbs. of 

No. of washed on scoured "prime" ''choice" Lbs. of 

sheep. sheep's back wool. wool. wool. "fribbs." 

1798 89 295 203 167 23 13 

1799 101 346 254 207 28 19 

1800 , 100 398 294 234 34 26 

1801 108 397 285 237 31 17 

1802 96 352 256 221 32 3 

I have drawn these facts from Sir Joseph Banks' five annual reports in relation to His Ma- 
jesty's flock. 



11 

of a specimen of picklock (the best) wool from a Negretti fleece, 
had the diameter of y-|-g- part of an inch. Another " fair sample" 
which he thought was probably fina, or No. 2, and a third one 
taken from Lord Western's Merinos, in England, gave the same 
admeasurement. This may probably be assumed as the average 
fineness of the good Merino wool of that day. 

Having attempted to show the principal characteristics of this 
celebrated breed of sheep at the period of its highest develop- 
ment in its native country, comments and comparisons will be 
reserved until its French and German offshoots — also introduced 
into the United States — are first examined. 

The French Merino. 

Colbert, the eminent French statesman, was the first, so far as 
I have ascertained, who attempted the transplantation of the 
Spanish Merino into other lands. Nor have I learned the date 
of that attempt. Colbert was born in 1619, and died in 1083. 
Occupied in incessant and harassing cares, he could give no per- 
sonal attention to his experiment, and it is to be presumed the 
sheep encountered among his dependents that obstinate antipathy 
which subsequently met them, among the ignorant, in every other 
country outside of Spain. As would be expected under such cir- 
cumstances, they attracted no notice, and soon disappeared. A 
subsequent importation of Merinos by M. de Perce, resulted so 
favorably as to attract the notice of the government, which insti- 
tuted a series of experiments on the subject, under the direction 
of the celebrated Daubenton. These proved satisfactorj^ and 
Louis XVIII of France applied to the King of Spain for permis- 
sion to export a flock. The latter not only granted the request, 
but ordered " that they should be selected from the finest flocks 
of Spain."* A little over three hundred of them arrived safely 
in France in 1786, and were placed in an agricultural establish- 
ment devoted to the improvement of domestic animals, at Eam- 
bouillet, about forty miles from Paris. 

Gilbert, in his already cited report to the National Institute 
of France, in 1796, thus describes them and the course of breed- 
ing to which they were subjected : 

" The stock from which the flock of Rambouillet was derived, was 
composed of individuals beautiful beyond any that had ever before been 

* Livingston's Essay, p. 47. 



"12 

brought from Spain ; but having been chosen from a great number of 
flocks, in different parts of the kingdom, they were distinguished by 
very striking local differences, which formed a medley disagreeable to 
the eye, but immaterial as it affected their quality. These character- 
istic differences have melted into each other, by their successive alli- 
ances, and from thence has resulted a race which perhaps resembles 
none of those which composed the primitive stock, but which certainly 
does not yield in any circumstance to the most beautiful in point of size, 
form and strength, or in the fineness, length, softness, strength and 
abundance of fleece. * * * The comparison I have made with the 
most scrupulous attention, between this wool and the highest priced of 
that drawn from Spain, authorizes me to declare that of Rambouillet 
superior." 

Judging by the taste uniformly displayed by the French in 
that particular, there is little doubt that "abundance of fleece" 
was the first rather than the last consideration — as it here 
happens to be named — which guided the original selection. And 
the far more liberal feed which the sheep received in France — 
their exemption from the exhausting annual migrations of Spain, 
and a course of breeding specially designed to produce that result, 
rapidly carried the weight of their fleeces beyond any point ever 
known in their native country. 

Ten years after their introduction into France, Lasteyrie 
gives their average weight of fleeces, unwashed, and thus con- 
tinues it through a series of years: in 1*196, 6 lbs. 9 oz. ; 1*797, 
8 lbs. ; 1798, 7 lbs. ; 1799, 8 lbs. ; 1800, 8 lbs. : 1801, 9 lbs. 1 oz. 

While all practical wool growers know that some seasons pro- 
duce lighter fleeces than others — without reference to the appa- 
rent condition of the sheep, or to the weather, or any other 
circumstance known to influence the growth of wool, the dis- 
parity here exhibited between 1796, and the succeeding years, 
cannot be thus explained, and it would be preposterous to 
imagine that the course of improvement had advanced thus 
abruptly within so limited a period. 

Gilbert, writing under government patronage, said, in 1796 : 

"Almost all the fleeces of the rams of two years old, and 
upwards, weigh from twelve to thirteen pounds, but the mean 
weight, taking rams and ewes together, has not quite attained 
to eight pounds, after deducting the tags and the wool from the 
belly, which are sold separately." This is, probably, the correct 
statement,* for Livingston, so familiar with t.he Rambouillet flock, 

* The supposed statement of Lasteyrie, under examination, may be a misprint. Having 
Buffered my wool library to become scattered^ I cannot verify the accuracy of the quotation 



13 

accepts it as such, and subjoins the following remarks : "It is 
proper to observe that the French pound is almost one-twelfth 
heavier than the English ; but, at the same time, to note that 
from the general custom of folding the sheep in France, of 
feeding them in fallows, and wintering them in houses, they are 
very dirty,* and their fleeces, of course, proportionably heavier ; 
the loss in washing is about sixty per cent, so that the average 
weight of the ram's fleece would be, when washed and scoured, 
about six American pounds, exclusive of tags and belly wool." 
" Scouring," even as Mr. Livingston uses the wordf , is a very 
different process from brook- washing ; and the belly wool, and 
clean tags, which are done up with the fleece in this country, 
would, I think, equal the weight acquired from additional yolki- 
ness and dirtiness ; so I infer that to place these unwashed 
French fleeces on an equality, in respect to cleanliness, with 
American brook-washed Merino fleeces, we should not deduct 
more than one-third of the given gross weight. There is some- 
thing exceedingly unsatisfactory in statistics which are so vague 
as not to mention the respective number of rams and ewes, the 
fleeces of which go to make up a mean weight — when all know 
the produce of the former is nearly double that of the latter.J 
But here we have something more definite, and it shows another 
decided stride upward in the Rambouillet sheep. Lasteyrie, in 
his report to the National Institute in 1802, states "that the 
medium weight of fleece of full grown nursing ewes was 8 lbs. 
1 oz. ; of the ewes of three years old, which had no lambs, 9 lbs. 
13 oz. ; and two-tenths [grade] ewes 10 lbs. 8 oz."§ By the rule 

from the original. I copy it from my "Sheep Husbandry in the South," and on turning to 
Youatt I find he gives the same figures. 

I will, in this connection, add that, for the reason already given, I shall generally, in this 
paper, be under the necessity of re-quoting foreign authors from the work of mine alluded to. 
It is possible that occasional misprints have crept into succeeding editions of that work. 

* A sheep, housed nights, and from storms, retains an additional amount of the soluble yolk 
in its fleece, which would far outweigh the mere " dirt" which adheres to the fleece. 

f I do not apprehend that Mr. Livingston here refers to a process as thorough as that now 
employed by manufacturers in cleansing wool ; but, judging from his remarks on other occa- 
sions, I infer that he meant something about equivalent to the Spanish mode of washing, 
described in a previous note. 

J As already said, not having Lasteyrie's works to refer to, I am not certain that he does 
not supply this omission ; but I think not, or I should have quoted his statements on former 



§ Quoted by Livingston, Essay, p. 142. 



14 

of estimating above adopted, the Rainbouillet grown ewes, six- 
teen years after the foundation of the flock, produced, on an 
average, not far from six pounds of wool, washed in the Ameri- 
can way. 

It is true that Mr. Livingston's own sheep, imported from 
France in 1802, bore less wool,* but it is evident that he made 
fineness, instead of quantity of wool, the leading consideration 
in their selection. 

There is nothing incredible in these stated results of this most 
successful French experiment. The gain in wool is no greater, 
in proportion, than we witnessed in the American Merino in the 
sixteen years which succeeded 1840. 

Leaping over a chasm of twenty-five years, let us again examine 
the Rambouillet sheep, and ascertain the progress of this most 
interesting experiment through the eyes of an English breeder 
of Merinos. Mr. Trimmer, the author of the "Practical Obser- 
vations," visited this flock in 1827, and the following is his often 
quoted description of it : 

" The sheep, in size, are certainly the largest pure Merinos I have 
ever seen. The wool is of various qualities, many sheep carrying very 
fine fleeces, others middling, and some rather indifferent; but the whole 
is much improved from the quality of the original Spanish Merinos. In 
carcass and appearance I hesitate not to say they are the most unsightly 
flock of the kind I ever met with. The Spaniards entertained an opinion 
that a looseness of skin under the throat, and other parts, contributed 
to the increase of fleece. This system the French have so much enlarged 
on that they have produced, in this flock, individuals with dewlaps 
almost down to the knees, and folds of skin on the neck, like frills, 
covering nearly the head. Several of these animals seem to possess 
pelts of such looseness of size that one skin would nearly hold the 
carcasses of two such sheep. The pelts are particularly thick, which 
is unusual in the Merino sheep. The rams' fleeces were stated at 14 lbs., 
and the ewes' 10 lbs., in the grease. By washing they would be 
reduced half, thus giving 7 and 5 lbs. each." 

Washed, in the American way, these rams' fleeces would have 
yielded an average of about 9^ lbs., and the ewes' fleeces about 
6| lbs. 

Trimmer described only the Royal flock. It appears that it 
was already beginning to be outstripped, in weight of fleece and 

* Viz, in 1807, three ewes, having lambs, bore 11 lbs. 12 oz., or nearly 4 lbs. each, of 
unwashed wool. In 1808 "he did not keep a separate account, but as they were in better 
order he thought the average was near 5 lbs." In 1809 seven ewes bore 36 lbs., or 5 lbs. 2 oz. 
per head. The same year his three rams bore, respectively, 12 lbs. 14 oz., 9 lbs., and a ram, 
fourteen months old, of "uncommon size," (imported from France in 1808,) bore 9 lbs. 6 oz., 
all unwashed. 



15 

size of carcass, by private ones. On this subject I prefer to quote 
the language of John A. Taintor, Esq., of Hartford, Connecticut, 
by far the most extensive importer of French sheep into the 
United States ; and a gentleman long familiar with all the National 
varieties of the Merino. It will add to the interest of his 
remarks on this subject to give his reasons for preferring the 
French, and his criticisms on other varieties. I should say, in 
justice to Mr. Taintor, that his letter to me, from which I quote, 
was written in haste, on the eve of a journey, and with no 
expectation that I would adopt its phraseology in making use of 
its facts. But its terse and careless off-handedness does not 
detract from its value.* He writes : 

"In 1828 I imported a lot of Saxony sheep, and, at various times, 
have selected, in France, nearly one thousand of their best Merinos. In 
1842 my friend, D. C. Collins, of this city (Hartford), bought, by my 
advice, fourteen ewes and two rams of the Royal flock at Rambouillet. 
About half of them were good sheep, but for want of care and atten- 
tion the importation was of but little value to the owner or the country. 
* * "I cannot afford to keep any other sheep (for wool) but 
French Merinos. I call them best because they pay best, and that is the 
true test. Not the sheep that can crawl through the year with the least 
possible care and feed, but one generously fed and cared for, and bred 
with close attention and judgment, with always an eye for the most 
valuable fleece for the manufacturer, and the most valuable carcass for 
the butcher. 

" Since 1828 I have been seven times across the water, and at one 
time took a year and a half to visit every part of Europe, and examine 
the flocks and see the owners, hear all they had to say, and then use 
my own judgment. You are aware that the Spanish Merinos have 
become almost lost. They are so small, neglected, and miserable that I 
would not take one of them even as a present. 

" Improved machinery, too, has had a ruinous effect on the Saxony 
flocks, as they have learned the art of using medium wool in the place 
of very fine. The sheep of Saxony, proper, are more than half a million 
less in number than ten years ago. 

"In France, the Royal flock (now the private property of the Empe- 
ror,) at Rambouillet, which, for years, attracted all the sheep masters 
of Europe to its annual auction sale, bred the fleece so fine, and the 
animals so delicate, that they could no longer attract attention ; and, 
four years ago, they changed the plan, and now sell (when they can) at 
private sale. The sheep have no wool on the head or legs, and but 
little on the belly They are ruined by high breeding. The wool is 
short and fine. 

" In France forage is more than double the price that it is in this 
country. The price of mutton is also about double, and the price of 
wool, on the average of the last fifteen years, about 24 to 26 cents per 
pound, always in the grease. Ewes' fleeces average 14 lbs. (in flocks 
of 500), and rams 20 lbs. to 24 lbs. Say average weight for ewes (all 

* It is dated January 2, 1862. 



■ 16 

ages) 100 lbs., and rams 200 lbs. One ram I bought (for 3000 francs or 
$600) weighed 309 lbs., carrying a fleece, unwashed, of 32 lbs. Fair 
estimate of loss, in cleansing, 60 per cent. 

"It is from this class of flocks I have selected my Merinos. It is 
from wool of this class that the fine French muslin de laines are made, 
as it has length of staple and fineness, with requisite strength, which is 
all important. 

"Three years ago a gentleman sent me, from Estremadura, a number 
of Spanish Merino fleeces as a sample (as circumstances did not allow 
me to see his flock when in Spain.) They were little wads of fleeces. 
I can send you one if you have any curiosity to see it."* 

The remarkable fact is made to appear, from these statements 
of Mr. Taintor, that, at the period of his importations, there were 
flocks of 500 in France which produced 14 lbs. of wool to the 
ewe, and from 20 to 24 lbs. to the rams. If we are to suppose 
the belly and tag wool excluded from these also, then the ewes 
produce nearly 9 lbs. 6 oz., and the rams about 14 lbs. 11 oz. of 
brook-washed avooI. If, as I conjecture, grown sheep are only 
referred to here, the weight of the ewes probably averaged not 
far from 150 lbs., and the rams at least 200 lbs.f 

I have traced down the history of these sheep to the period of 
their comparatively recent emigration to the United States, 
although two or three importations of them, hereafter to be 
mentioned, were made about the beginning of the present 
century. But I cannot learn that all of the latter included more 
than a dozen living sheep on their arrival in this country. And 
it is probable either that these were soon mixed with the Spanish 
Merinos of the country, or else that they had not yet obtained 
established characteristics differing sufficiently from those of the 
latter to found a separate family. At least no family, bearing 
any resemblance to the present French sheep, sprung from them. 

* One of these fleeces has been forwarded to me. It is in the dirt, and weighs 5 lbs. 11 oz. 
It is difficult to judge its exact quality, as exposure to the air has converted much of it to the 
color of a sponge, and altered its appearance in other particulars. It is about as long as 
American Merino wool — is not very even in quality, and I think I am not mistaken in saying 
that in fineness it would be below mediocrity in any prime full blood American flock. Having 
been sent among specimens from Spain it ought to be up, at least, to the average quality and 
quantity of fleeces in that country. 

| I have seen flocks of Mr. Taintor's imported sheep, and their immediate descendants, 
numbering thirty or forty each, and I judge this about the average weight of the full grown 
ewes when in good condition. They varied from 125 to 180 lbs. — an occasional one reaching 
200 lbs. 



17 

The Saxon Merino. 

Though France took priority in the introduction of the emi- 
grant Merinos, Saxony effected an earlier successful colonization 
of them. In 1765 Prince Xavier, administrator of the Electorate 
during the minority of the Elector, Frederick Christian, obtained 
the permission of his brother-in-law, the King of Spain, to intro- 
duce three hundred Merinos into Saxony, and other flocks on 
subsequent occasions. It is understood that the sheep were 
principally drawn from the Escurial cabana. 

The course of breeding adopted in the Electoral and private 
establishments tended to develope an extreme fineness of wool 
at a material sacrifice of other properties. Size of carcass, 
weight of fleece, and constitutional vigor, were rapidly dimi- 
nished. The loss of hardiness was met by an extreme care of 
the animal, extending to those minute and methodical arrange- 
ments which are so congenial to the spirit of German agriculture, 
and which were rendered economically practicable by the cheap- 
ness of labor. 

The sheep were housed during the winter (usually in spacious 
and well arranged structures of brick or stone). They were 
housed at night, and generally brought in for a time at noon, in 
the warm weather ; their carefully selected and constantly 
varying food was portioned out to them with the strictest nicety; 
they had a daily routine, and a monthly routine of nutriment; 
they were never allowed to go out when dew was on the grass ; 
they were most carefully protected from rain, and fed in stables 
during its continuance ; they were not allowed to run on par- 
ticular kinds of ground in damp weather, etc., etc. And, during 
the . yeaning season, the regularity and care of the attendance 
they received did not fall far short of those of a human lying- 
in hospital. 

These sheep, when introduced into the United States, lacked 
at least one-fifth, and often more, of the weight of the parent 
Spanish Merino, as it then was ; they were longer legged in pro- 
portion to size, slimmer, finer boned, and thinner in the neck and 
head. At every point they gave indications of a more delicate 
organization. Their fleeces averaged from one and a half to two 
pounds of washed wool in ewes, and from two to three pounds in 
rams. There was sufficient yolk in the fleece to give it pliancy 
and brilliancy, but the yolk was colorless, limpid, and easily 
2 



•18 

liberated in washing. It never assumed a viscid, waxy consist- 
ency, or became indurated into "gum" either within or on the 
outer extremity of the wool, and consequently having nothing on 
the surface to catch and retain dirt, the fleece remained almost 
white externally. 

The staple, unstretched, was usually from an inch to an inch 
and a half in length on the back and sides, shorter on the belly, 
and formed a considerably less compact mass than that of the 
Spanish Merino. In the best sheep, the surface of the fleece was 
smooth and even, (as if it had been cut oif at a uniform length,) 
and it broke into masses of some size ; but in inferior animals 
the wool grew in small disconnected tufts, which ended in points 
externally ; these fell apart on the shoulder and along the back, 
and in some instances partly hung down like hair or Leicester 
wool, instead of standing at right angles to the surface. The 
last indicated extreme thinness of fleece. When to this was 
added a gauzy, half-peeled nose and ear — an ear as thin and 
almost as transparent as parchment — a pale skin, a carcass with- 
out depth and about six inches thick, a camel-shaped neck, and 
long spider legs, the " lower deep" of debility and degeneracy 
was reached. 

But there was an atoning beauty about the wool of the Saxon 
which it was hard to resist. It flashed with such a gem-like 
lustre ; it was so beautifully fine and even ; it had such an exqui- 
site downiness of touch, that all other wool seemed base by 
the side of it. I have seen it so pliant, that a lock of it held 
upright by the outer end, between a thumb and finger, and gently 
played up and down, would bend and dance like a plume. 

According to Youatt's measurements, the fibre was about -glo 
of an inch in diameter ; but he did not obtain fine specimens 
of the wool. 

This variety had " touched bottom" in physical degeneracy at 
the period of its importation to the United States, and a reaction 
was commencing in breeding. As there have been recent Ame- 
rican importations of them, I will present a brief view of the pre- 
sent prime sheep of Germany. 

That the former inferiority both in weight of fleece and carcass 
continues to exist in the flocks of Saxony, Silesia, and all parts 
of Germany where these sheep have become established, is cer- 
tain. But such breeders as Baron Von Sternburg in Saxony, 



19 

Prince Lichnowsky and Mr. Fischer in Silesia, and various large 
proprietors in Hungary, have bred on the principle that good 
size and compactness of form and fleece are essential to profit. 
Vol Sternburg (Alexander Speck Yon Sternburg, generally called 
Baron Speck by Americans) is now better known in this country 
than any other German breeder. I think most if not all of our 
late Saxon importations have been made from his admirable 
flock. In a letter to Mr. Wright, the American Minister to Ber- 
lin, written in 1859,* the Baron gave the following as the aver- 
age weights of his sheep : full grown rams, 110 lbs. ; ewes, 82 
lbs. ; wethers wherj fat for the butcher, 110 lbs. to 115 lbs. The 
average weight of the washed fleeces of his ewes was 2 lbs. 7 oz. ; 
of his wethers, 2 lbs. 8 oz. ; of his yearlings, 2 lbs. 5 oz. ; of his 
rams, 4 lbs. to 6 lbs. 14 oz. The flock numbers 1200. His best 
ewes undoubtedly produce as much as 3 lbs. a head, and kept in 
smaller flocks and pampered, would produce nearly or quite 3 
lbs. 4 oz. 

Mr. Charles L. Fleichmann, formerly draughtsman of the Uni- 
ted States Patent Office, attended the great meeting of German 
agriculturists at Breslau, in 1845, where particular attention was 
given to the subject of wool ; and that gentleman communicated 
the result of his very minute observations in an instructive paper 
prepared at the request of the Commissioner of Patents.f In 
this paper, the sheep of the manor of Alcsuth, in Hungary, are 
mentioned as a flock of high reputation throughout Germany. I 
do not observe that their average weight of carcass is given, but 
Mr. Fleichmann speaks of their " surprising size" and says, " there 
are some rams that measure five feet from the muzzle to the root 
of the tail, and twenty-nine inches from the bottom to the chine. J 

The average weight of their fleeces was as follows : rams 3 lbs., 
wethers 3 lbs. 8 oz., ewes 2 lbs. 8 oz., lambs 14 oz. The wool 
was extremely well washed. The flock numbered ten thousand. 
A diminution of numbers, a selection of the heaviest fleeced, and 
pampering, would produce the same increase in the weight of 

* For his sensible and practical letter containing much information in respect to German 
sheep husbandry, see Patent Office Report, 1859, p. 288. 

f See Patent Office Report, 1847, p. 239, et seq. 

J This is a considerably longer and taller sheep than the Spanish Merino, or than the Ame- 
rican Merino of approved size and form. See Petri's table, already given, with subjoined 
American measurements, and remarks. I cannot think that such length and height would 
find any favor in Germany, in animals producing only three pounds of wool. 



20 

wool that has been assumed the like circumstances would pro- 
duce in the Baron Von Sternburg's flock. 

The Baron sells his wool " from 2s 8d to 3s 2d per pound, (En- 
glish currency, I take it.) The Alcsuth wool was sold in f 838 
for 72i cents a pound, in 1839 for 19 cents, and in 1840 and 1841, 
when prices were depressed, for 64 cents. 

At Breslau is the most celebrated wool market of Germany, 
frequented by manufacturers and wool merchants from England, 
France, Belgium, Russia, and other nations. The following table 
of what is about the average annual prices of the seven qualities 
into which the German fine wools are sorted, will be found instruc- 
tive for the purposes of comparison :* 

Cwt. Reichthalers. Dolls. 

3,000 are of the finest quality and average about 130 = 98 per cwt. 

4,000 110= 77 do 

5,000 100= 70 do 

10,000 90= 63 do 

15,000 80= 56 do 

15,000 70= 49 do 

8,000 50a60 = 35a42 do 

Baron Von Sternburg's sheep farm has some other stock. He 
realizes 5£ per cent, from the whole, and appears well satisfied 
with his profits. It is probably a high rate of profit for any of 
the great German or Hungarian sheep establishments. 

The Silesian Merino. 

There is not, perhaps, properly speaking, any distinct family 
of Merinos entitled exclusively to this appellation. There are in 
Prussian Silesia numerous flocks descended from the Saxon Me- 
rinos, and not a few descended from Merinos brought direct from 
Spain. In the only important importation made from Silesia .to 
the United States, of which I have information, the sheep belong 
to the latter class, and so far as this country is concerned they 
have received the distinctive name of Silesian Merinos. 

I will reserve a description of this flock, until the subject of 
importations of Merinos into the United States is specially con- 
sidered. 

* See Fleichmann's paper, Patent Office Report, 1847, p. 293. 



21 

Introduction of Merinos into the United States. 

In 1793, William Foster, of Boston, Mass., being on his return 
from a residence at Cadiz, in Spain, "with much difficulty and 
risk " got out of that kingdom, and brought home with him three 
Merino sheep — two ewes and one ram. Their fate was somewhat 
characteristic of American knowledge of sheep at that time. 
Mr. Foster writes: "Being about to leave this country for 
France, soon after my arrival in Boston, I presented these sheep 
to Mr. Andrew Craigie, of Cambridge, who, not knowing their 
value at that time, ' simply ate them,' as he told me years after 
when I met him at an auction buying a Merino ram for $1000."* 

In 1801 Dupont de Nemours, the head of the commission 
appointed by the French government to select, in Spain, the 
large flock of Merinos given up by the latter by the treaty of 
Basle, together with a Mr. Delessert, a Parisian banker, shipped 
four ram lambs to America, three of them intended for farms 
owned by those gentlemen in the United States, and the fourth 
for President Jefferson. Three perished on the passage, but the 
other arrived safely, and lived to effect a vast deal of good.f 

Later, the same year, Mr. Seth Adams, of Zanesville, Ohio, 
imported a pair of Spanish sheep which had been carried into 
France. They arrived in Boston in October, and received the 
premium of the Massachusetts Society for promoting Agriculture, 
the following year.| 

In 1802, Mr. Livingston, the American Minister in France, sent 
home two pairs of Merinos to his estate on the Hudson. They 

* George Livermore, Esq., of Boston, writes me: "Mr. Foster is still living at the advan- 
ced age of nearly ninety years, and I have this day called on him, and heard from his own 
lips an account of his importation of Merino sheep substantially the same as that given above 
(January 20, 1862) ." 

f "Don Pedro " was taken to Dupont's place, near New York. In 1802 he was placed on 
Delessert's farm, called Rosendale, near Kingston, N. Y., and was used there for four years. 
In 1805 Delessert rented bis farm, and sold his sbeep at auction. The ram was bought by 
Dupont's agent for §60. The half and three-quarter blood ewes were sold to the surrounding 
farmers "at a price inferior to tbat of common sheep," and above half of them "perished 
of neglect the following winter." (Preface to Livingston's Essay, p. 8.) Chancellor Living- 
ston found 24 of them and bought them after the introduction of his Merinos. " Don Pedro" 
was removed, in 1808, to E. I. Dupont's farm, near Wilmington, Delaware. That spirited 
gentleman offered the ram's services gratuitously to his neighbors, but scarcely any of them 
availed themselves of the offer ! He, however, founded a valuable flock for his owner. This 
superb animal, for that day, weighed 138 lbs., and his fleece, well washed in cold water, 8 lbs. 
8 oz. His wool was fine and even, and he was a model of form. 

i Mr. Adams published this statement in the Albany Cultivator many years ago, and its 
authenticity has never been disputed. 



22 

were purchased from the French National flock, at the Veterinary 
school, at Chalons. They cost him, delivered at Paris, five miles 
distant, 1200 franks, and about twice that sum delivered at his 
farm, though the patriotic captain of the vessel refused to take 
any freight.* One of his rams is figured from a drawing fur- 
nished by himself, in Vol. 1, of the "Transactions of the (N. Y.) 
Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts and Manufactures." 
It represents a low 7 , compact animal, with a smooth, long face, a 
skin free from folds on any part, and legs without wool below 
the knees. Though somewhat out of drawing, it is, obviously, 
the figure of a class of Merinos very common twenty years ago, 
and yet to be found in ordinary unimproved flocks. The type is 
essentially Spanish, there not being the most remote resemblance 
to the French sheep of the present day. 

Mr. Livingston made another importation of a single French 
ram in 1807, and he speaks of having purchased some choice 
ewes brought to France from Spain. But I do not learn that the 
latter ever arrived in this country. His sheep attracted no 
special notice until 1807 or 1808, when he began to sell his rams 
for $150 a piece. f Half-blood rams and ewes, bred from his rams 
on common sheep, sold for $12 a piece. 

This eminent public benefactor had too many pursuits to be 
able to give much of his personal attention to breeding. His 
sheep improved, and were of good quality, but he established no 
distinct family, of special value, which has survived until the 
present time. 

In the same year with Mr. Livingston's first importation (1802), 
Col. Humphreys,;}; the American Minister in Spain, being about to 
return from that country, after an official residence in it of seven 
years, brought home with him a flock of Merinos. I quote the 

* They were treated, on their arrival, exactly like his other sheep — fed on hay, and had no 
shelter. They brought two lambs the first year, and three of them (he had let his brother 
have one of the rams) sheared 11 lbs. of washed wool — nearly 3 lbs. 12 oz. each. The next 
year the lambs came in January, "were neglected, and died!" In 1805 "one of the ewes 
was sick and brought no lamb ; the other dropped a ewe lamb ; and the five fleeces (from the 
three old sheep and two shearlings), when washed, weighed 18 lbs., besides the tags and 
waste wool," upwards of 3 lbs. 8 oz. each. The Chancellor " thought this a considerable 
yield from small sheep, kept upon hay, in a flock with twenty other sheep !" See Living- 
ston's Essay, &c, in 1806, subsequently expanded into his more elaborate Essay of 1809. 

\ For a choice one raised by himself, ten months old, he refused $1000. 

% He was an aid-de-camp of Washington in the Eevolution, and an inmate of his family at 
Mount Vernon from 1788 to 1790. He was an elegant, learned, and public-spirited gentle- 
man. 



23 

following statements from his "Dissertation," &c, addressed to 
the Massachusetts "Society for Promoting Agriculture" (August 
25, 1802): 

"Convinced that this race of sheep, of which, T believe, not one had 
been brought to the United States until the importation by myself,* 
might be introduced with great benefit to our country, I contracted with 
a person, of the most respectable character, to deliver to me, at Lisbon, 
one hundred, composed of twenty-five rams and seventy-five ewes, from 
one to two years old. They were conducted, with proper passports, 
across the country of Portugal, by three Spanish shepherds, and escor- 
ted by a small guard of Portuguese soldiers. On the tenth of April 
last they were embarked in the Tagus, on board the ship Perseverance, 
of 250 tons, Caleb Coggeshall master. In about 50 days, 21 rams and 
10 ewes were landed at Derby, Connecticut, they having been shifted, at 
New York, on board of a sloop destined to that river. The nine which 
died were principally killed in consequence of bruises received by the 
violent rolling of the vessel on the banks of Newfoundland. "f 

It does not appear, from his writings, that Col. Humphreys 
paid any attention to the difference in the cabanas in Spain.! 

♦Livingston said his own "arrived safely in the spring of 1802, and were, he believed, the 
first couples ever imported into the United States." (Pref. to Essay, p. 7.) It is probable, 
therefore, Livingston's arrived a little the earliest. The point is of no consequence, but I am 
told it created some feeling in its day. 

f See Col. Humphreys' Works, p. 349. In this gentleman's poem " On the Industry of the 
United States of America," after a glowing description of the times: 
''When true utility, with taste allied, 
Shall make our homespun garbs our Nation's pride," 
he proceeds to say — 

"Not guarded Colchis gave admiring Greece 
So rich a treasure in its golden fleece. 

Oh, might my guidance from the downs of Spain, 
Lead a white flock across the western main ; 
Fam'd, like the bark that bore the Argonaut, 
Should be the vessel with the burden fraught ! 
Clad in the raiment my Merinos yield, 
Like Cincinnatus, fed from my own field, 
Far from ambition, grandeur, care and strife, 
In sweet fruition of domestic life ; 
There would I pass, with friends beneath my trees, 
What rests from public life in lettered ease." 

f I am indebted to George Livermore, Esq., of Boston, for several MSS. letters of Colonel 
Humphreys, specially on the subject of his sheep, addressed to different correspondents, and 
not one of them mentions or alludes to this subject. If I recollect aright the name of any 
separate cabana does not occur in his published papers. He was the son of a clergyman, and, 
not long after leaving college, entered the army. During his two years' residence at Mount 
Vernon he doubtless acquired many agricultural tastes, but he could have known little or 
nothing of it practically until his return from Spain. Prior to that period his leisure hours 
appear to have been devoted to polite literature. He does not mention ever even seeing any 
of the great Spanish flocks; and alone mentions, as the sources of the information given by 
him in his Dissertation, " the facts stated, in some instances, by respectable individuals, and, 
in others, by official reports." 



24 

It has been suggested to me, by a most intelligent correspondent, 
that, being an Ambassador, he was, probably, allowed to draw 
his sheep from the Escurial flock, and I find that this impres- 
sion is somewhat prevalent. Those who have read his writings, 
and observed the old-school ceremonious courtesy, as well as the 
other tastes developed in them, will have no difficulty in arriving 
at a very positive conclusion that, had Colonel Humphreys been 
indebted to any proprietor of a cabana for a selection from his 
flock, or for any other particular favor in the premises, the fact 
would have been carefully stated. It is to be presumed he made 
inquiries in the proper place, and was referred to a thoroughly 
capable, as well as "respectable" person, to make the purchases 
for him, and there is no doubt the commission was most intelli- 
gently and faithfully executed. No flock enjoyed a better early 
reputation in our country, and none enjoys a better traditional 
reputation now. With the Spanish ideas in respect to mixing 
cabanas, such a Spanish agent as he employed would not have 
procured different varieties as the foundation of a flock. It is 
singular how few things, in relation to these sheep, can now be 
agreed on by different recollectors ; and the contemporaneous 
descriptions are usually so vague and general that they will 
apply to one variety as well as another. 

In a manuscript letter of Col. Humphreys, before me, he says, 
as if he thought it worthy of note, that a ram, raised on his 
farm, yielded 7 lbs. 5 oz. of washed wool. In an Essay, obviously 
written by a gentleman, and a man of the first intelligence and 
standing, but whose name is torn from the copy before me,* there 
is a more careful description than I have elsewhere seen of a full 
blood ram of this flock, owned by Mr. Bulkley, of Philadelphia, 
and lent by him to the writer in 1807. This ram was very small, 
very fine, and produced but 4 lbs. of washed wool. His " length of 
staple was somewhat less than that of Mr. Livingston's rams." 
" He was extremely gentle, and strongly marked with the carna- 
tion hue of skin ; had spiral horns, and brownness of fleece 
surface, all of which qualities he faithfully transmitted to his 
progeny in their usual proportions." The " brownness penetrated 
to some depth from the surface." His lambs, when they came, 

* This writer mentions that he wrote the article on wool in the Cyclopedia; and he 

was the importer of the black Merinos next to be described. I have had considerable search 
made in Philadelphia to discover his name, but 3 as yet, without success. 



25 

were "covered with coarse hairs," to the great suspicion of their 
paternity, until it was found this hair dropped off, and that his 
subsequent crops of lambs exhibited the same peculiarity. Here 
we have a distinct hint of Paular or Infantado characteristics. 
Yet Col. Humphreys' sheep could scarcely have been Paulars 
without some one alluding to their throatiness — a point which 
then attracted peculiar notice both because it was unusual, and 
regarded as unsightly. Besides, the sheep we now have among 
us, which can trace a clear descent from Col. Humphreys' flock, 
are not marked by this peculiarity unless it has been bred on 
them within the last fifteen or twenty years. It can hardly be 
presumed that the American Ambassador would have been placed 
by his Spanish acquaintances in the hands of an agent who 
would have purchased from, an obscure flock, or one not among 
the first.* I do not build up a hypothesis on the single fact 
above given; it is only one among a number of scattering hints 
and circumstances which have led me to the opinion that the 
sheep were from the cabana of the Duke of Infantado. 

One thing is certain. No such ram as Mr. Bulkley's could have 
been of Escurial blood. And the darkest and yolkiest sheep 
bred in the United States (Mr. Stephen Atwood's family), which 
trace directly to sheep bred by Col. Humphreys, cannot be 
descended from the whitest and dryest fleeced sheep of Spain. 

Judging from the statements in Col. Humphreys' manuscript 
letters lying before me, he not only found great satisfaction but 
great success in breeding his sheep. The very ones he brought 
from Spain, he says, increased half a pound in their fleeces ; and 
their descendants continued to improve in that and every other 
particular. He speaks glowingly of their hardiness and propen- 
sity to fatten ; and in the highest terms of their mutton. This 
gentleman (to whom the farmers of New England should erect a 
statue) died in 1818, when causes, hereafter to be detailed, had 
sunk the Merinos into contempt and neglect. His invaluable 
sheep were then scattered, and, as a general thing, they appear 
to have fallen into the hands of those who attached no great 
value to their blood, for I can learn of but two or three instances 
where they were preserved distinct after 1826 ; and it is a lesson 

* Col. Humphreys was a favorite at both the Courts of Portugal and Spain. He had been 
made highly wealthy by marriage. He had the means to pay for the best; and those who 
know anything of him know how absurd it would be to suppose he failed to instruct his agent 
to obtain the best. 



26 

of some value to those who term themselves " breeders," to know- 
that those who had the good sense or good luck thus to preserve 
them in their purity were farmers of little information, and 
wholly obscure until their connection with these sheep raised 
them to notoriety. 

Mr. ,* of Philadelphia, had, as early as 1796-7, 

sent an order to Spain for a Meriuo ram. The animal reached 
the Capes of Delaware safely, but was there washed overboard 
in a storm. He sent an order for a pair in 1801, instead of 
which two pairs of black ones reached him in 1803! This he 
supposed done to " increase the profit of the commission," for 
black Merinos " cost but little, being held in no estimation in 
Spain." This gentleman bred from these assiduously for a few 
years, but nobody would buy them,, and they had to be aban- 
doned. 

Mr. Muller imported a pair of Merinos from the flock of the 
Prince of Hesse Cassel in 1807, and they, and their descendants, 
were kept about Philadelphia, and in New Jersey and Delaware. 
James Caldwell, Esq., of Philadelphia, interbred, with success, 
between these and sheep from Col. Humphreys' flock. 

But by far the most extensive and important importations of 
Spanish Merinos into the United States were thus described in a 
letter to me, in 1841,f from Hon. William Jarvis, the principal 
person engaged in them : 

" When the second irruption of the French armies into Spain, in the 
winter of 1809, drove the Spanish Junto from Madrid to Badajos, the 
Junto was without money and without resources, and they durst not 
levy any taxes on the Estremaduras lest they should disgust that pro- 
vince, and the people should declare in favor of the French. No alter- 
native was, therefore, left them other than to sell the four flocks of 
Merinos which had been confiscated with the other property of four 
grandees who had joined France, with license to transport them out of 
Spain. Those flocks were the Paular, which had belonged to the cele- 
brated Prince of Peace, the Negretti, which had belonged to the Conde 
Campo de Alange, the Aqueirres (the wool of which was known in 
England as the Muros, this flock having been the property of the 
Moors before their expulsion from Spain), which had belonged to the 

* See second note back, and the text to which it is appended. I find this account of his 
importation of black sheep in the fragmentary Essay mentioned in such text. The Essay will 
be found in a volume of the State Agricultural library, made up of miscellaneous papers and 
extracts. It appears to have been published in 1808 or 1809. The author says the price of 
his sheep, in Spain, was $60, freight $20. The quantity of wool yielded by the two rams was 
4| and 4£ lbs. ; by the ewes, 3^ and 3j lbs. This was washed wool, I suppose. 

\ Published in the Transactions of the New York State Agricultural Society that year. 



27 

Conde de Aqueirres, and the Montarco, which had belonged to the Conde 
of that name. Those flocks were then in the vicinity of Badajos, and, 
when confiscated, the two former numbered about five thousand each, 
and the two latter about twenty thousand each ; but they had been 
reduced, by being unceremoniously slaughtered for the use of the armies, 
to about seven thousand five hundred Paulars, six thousand Negrettis, 
four thousand Montarcos, and three thousand Aqueirres. Four thousand 
of the Paular flock were sent to the King of England, in compliance 
with the application of his Minister, and General Downie and I pur- 
chased the remainder. Sir Charles Stewart, the British Minister, pur- 
chased the Negretti flock, of which I selected a small part, and the 
remainder he sent to England. I also purchased about one thousand 
three hundred Aqueirres, and selected about two hundred from the 
Montarcos. I likewise purchased, in Spain, two hundred of the Escu- 
rial flock from the mayoral, which were the only Escurials ever sent to 
this country. I shipped, in 1809 and 1810, about three thousand eight 
hundred and fifty to this country of the aforementioned flocks, being all 
which I purchased in Spain, and which were distributed as follows : 
about one thousand five hundred to New York ; one thousand to Boston 
and Newburyport, including three hundred and fifty which I sent to be 
reserved for me ; the remainder were sent to Philadelphia, Baltimore, 
Alexandria, Norfolk and Richmond, and a small number to Wiscasset, 
Portland and Portsmouth, as I was disposed to distribute these valuable 
animals to every State which would be likely to profit by the acquisi- 
tion. Those I reserved for myself were composed of about half Paulars, 
a quarter AqueiTres, and the other fourth of Escurials, Negrettis and 
Montarcos, which I subsequently mixed together. 

" There were sent, in the latter year, (1810) by others, about two thou- 
sand five hundred, composed of Paulars, had of General Downie, Mon- 
tarcos, Aqueirres and Guadalupes. Part of those went to New York, 
part to Boston. All those sheep were Leonesa, transhumantes, and 
were of the prime flocks of Spain. 

" I have been^ble to be thus minute in relation to the Merinos in 1809 
and 1810, as I was then American Consul at Lisbon, which was the port 
from which they were all shipped, it being only about one hundred miles 
to Badajos, and the nearest seaport to that place." 

It was thus our peculiar good fortune at the period of the final 
disruption, and dispersion to foreign lands of some of the most 
celebrated flocks of Spain, to have on the spot a public agent 
who had the sagacity and energy to avail himself of the opportu- 
nity to confer an inestimable benefit on his country. 

Mr. Jarvis. very unfortunately crossed a portion of his large 
flock of Spanish Merinos with the Saxons, when the latter were 
brought into the country ; but he discovered his error in time to 
correct it,* and made those careful arrangements which effectu- 

* Mr. Jarvis wrote to me in 1844, a letter from which the following and some other extracts 
were published in the same year in the Albany Cultivator and New York Agriculturist: ■ 

" In May, 1826, I purchased 52 or 53 at the sale in Brighton, Mass., of the large importa- 
tion of Saxony sheep by Messrs. Searle of Boston; and the following autumn I selected and 
separated one hundred merino ewes from my flock, and the rest I crossed with Saxony bucks. 



28 

ally prevented any subsequent admixtures of blood. He bred 
his descendants of his Spanish importations pure to the period 
of his recent death.* 

I have not thought it necessary to collect the statistics of all 
the different importations which followed those of Mr. Jarvis, 
and shall allude to but few, the facts concerning which appear 
to be well authenticated. In a letter to L. D. Gregory, Mr. Jarvis 
goes into some more particulars in regard to the later importa- 
tions. He says there were about 300 Guadalupes and 200 or 
300 Paulars sent to Boston ; about 2,500 Montarcos to Boston, 
New York, Providence, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Savannah ; 
that those shipped for Boston were for the account of Gorham 
Parsons, Gen. Sumner, D. Tichenor, and E. H. Derby ; that they 
were all shipped in 1809, 1810, and the early part of 1811. 
Charles Henry Hall, of Pomfret, Connecticut, (afterwards so well 
known as a breeder of horses, cattle, &c. in New York,) who, I 

Those hundred Merinos and their descendants I have always been careful to keep by them- 
selves, both summer and winter, and have been very particular in the choice of pure blood 
Merino bucks to put to them for breeding. The pure blood Merinos I kept marked with my 
old Merino ear mark, a half penny (or notch) under each ear; the progeny of those crossed 
between Merino and Saxony, with two half pennies under the right ear; and the full blooded 
Saxony with two half pennies under each ear. 

" In 1831 or 1832, finding that the Saxony crosses were reduced in weight of fleece from 
four pounds, which was about the average of my full blood Merino flock, to two pounds ten 
ounces, or two pounds twelve ounces per fleece, upon an average, I took out all the remaining 
old Merino ewes, and put them with the descendants of the one hundred formerly reserved 
pure bloods. I have since bred all the Merino ewes with Merino bucks; and the cross blood 
ewes with cross blood bucks, selecting those with the heaviest fleeces; and full blooded Saxony 
ewes with full blooded Saxony bucks. I have been very particular to keep the three kinds of 
ewes apart, winter and summer. This I have been easily able to do, as I have ten sheep 
yards, each connected with a shed, and well separated with a good fence, and water in each; 
and fifteen pastures, all well walled or fenced. I particularly employ one man about my 
sheep, and constantly give the necessary directions regarding them, which I, personally, see 
are faithfully executed. Usually in March or April, I myself select from the preceding spring 
lambs the buck lambs I intend for stock bucks. The flocks are separately washed and sepa- 
rately sheared ; and during the shearing process the lambs are earmarked and tar marked; 
and the old sheep are also tar marked as fast as sheared. I have been thus minute, to satisfy 
you of the confidence and safety with which I can speak of the blood of my sheep. 

" My flock consists of about a thousand sheep of all kinds, of which there are one hundred 
and sixty Merinos, the pure blooded descendants of those I purchased in Spain in 1809 and 
'10, and exported from Lisbon; about one hundred full blood Saxons; and the remainder are 
crossed between Saxony and Merino. The fleeces of the latter, from the attention I have paid 
to the selection of bucks, (as before mentioned,) are much heavier than in 1832. The aver- 
age of the three kinds, taken together, is now 3 lbs. 2 oz. to 3 lbs. 4 oz. per head." 

* Now that he has passed away, I may be allowed to say of him, that on the score of integ- ' 
rity no American breeder's reputation ever stood higher. He was emphatically a " gentleman 
of the old school," above trick, dissimulation, or that paltry reticency which has marked so 
many celebrated breeders in all countries of the world. 



29 

think, was American consul at Cadiz, at the time, sent home 
about 50 Merinos to his father, Dr. Hall. " They were Paulars, 
and good ones, too," says a competent judge. Peck & Atwater, 
of New Haven, imported a cargo of Merinos into that city in 
1810.* A cargo of Infantados went into New London in 1810 or 
1811. Abraham Heaton, of New Haven, and an associate im- 
ported a cargo into that place. Mr. Heaton writes me, (Jan. 29, 
1862 :) " I have no invoice of the particular breed of the sheep 
at this time, but I think I gave the papers regarding the breed, 
&c. to Daniel Bacon, of Woodbury, of this state, since dead, he 
having been one of the principal purchasers. I well recollect 
that a part of the cargo was composed of what is called the Gua- 
dalupe breed." A cargo of fine Paulars went into New York in 
1811. 

Circumstances Affecting their Success. 

The earlier importations of Merinos into the United Stages, as 
has been already remarked, attracted but little public notice. 
The woolen cloths then made in the country were mostly spun 
and woven in families. The fine Merino wool was as little adap- 
ted to the instruments employed, as was so valuable a material 
to the cheap, common fabrics worn by our people. Both Living- 
ston and Humphreys, however, patriotically set the example of 
attempting fine-cloth manufactures, with the new wool ; and the 
former, with his usual energy as a public improver, made and 
published the results of investigations and experiments on the 
subject, which were soon to prove of the highest value. 

"When the great warlike struggle then shaking Europe led, in 
1807, to maritime regulations — the English Orders in Council and 
the French Milan decree — which converted American commerce 
into the mere prey of the belligerents, our government made an 
effort to save it by laying an embargo (Dec. 22d) which entirely 

* Mr. Jacob N. Blakeslee, of Watertown, Conn., whose flock on the maternal side is descended 
from these sheep, writes me, Jan. 15, 1862 : " I took them of Capt. Peck to keep one yearfor 
half the wool and half the increase; they were the same he selected in Spain; they had the 
Spanish brand on the nose of every sheep ; he told me he selected them himself from the flock 
of the ' Don Delle Infandado,' which was the best flock in Spain." 

Since the preceding was written, I have found a letter from Mr. Blakeslee, in Appendix to 
Mr. Morrell's " American Shepherd," in which he says : " I began a flock of sheep, in 1815, 
that were imported by Peck & Atwater, of New Haven. A part of them were the Negretti 
and a part Montarco. I let them run together till 1823." There are other conflicts in the 
statements of the two letters. I mention it as a lesson to a large class of sheep breeders, of the 
impropriety of relying solely on their memory in regard to anoient pedigrees. 



30 

shut our shipping off from the ocean. This was succeeded by 
the non-intercourse law, which prevented trade with England and 
France. France repealed her obnoxious decrees, and trade was 
restored with her, but the continued attitude of England ren- 
dered commerce with her neighbor precarious. A British out- 
rage on an American national vessel (the Chesapeake) early in 
1811, forced our country to begin preparations for war. This 
was declared in 1812, and continued until 1815. 

Thus for a period of about eight years, our commerce was vir- 
tually suspended with those nations which had previously sup- 
plied us with our woolen goods, and was so interrupted and pre- 
carious with all others, that the establishment of home manufac- 
tories and of the means of supplying them with raw material, 
became an object of prime necessity. Most fortunately, the 
embargo was raised at just the right moment to allow the sheep, 
which the situation of Spanish affairs threw in the way of Mr. 
Jarvis and others, to be purchased and sent home. 

At such a juncture, it would be expected that the arrival of 
the Merino on our shores would be hailed with enthusiasm — par- 
ticularly when it was learned that we had obtained the very best 
sheep of Spain. And, as a matter of course, the spirit of specu- 
lation lent energy to the movement. From $1,000 to $1,500 a 
head were in many instances paid for the imported rams, and 
$1,000 a head for the ewes. Flocks, of full blood or grade sheep 
were eagerly commenced in all parts of the country. Fine wool 
commanded such an exorbitant price that it required the utmost 
bad management, added to the most extravagant orignal dis- 
bursement, to render the venture unprofitable. As early as 1807 
wool rose to a dollar a pound. In 1809, Mr. Livingston sold his 
full blood Merino wool, unwashed, for two dollars a pound ! 
During the war with England it rose to $2.50. 

State Encouragement. 

The Legislature of this state passed laws to encourage the man- 
ufacture of woolen cloth. By the act of April 8, 1808, premiums 
of $150, $75 and $50 were respectively offered for " the best spe- 
cimens of woolen cloth, of uniform texture and quality," " of a 
breadth of not less than three-quarters of a yard," manufactured 
within the state ; a premium of $80 to the best specimen manu- 
factured in a family in each county of the state ; and premiums 



31 

of $150, $75 and $50, in plate, to the three best of the last named 
county domestic specimens in the whole state.* 

The act of April 5, 1810, after declaring that " important 
advantages, materially connected with the prosperity of the state, 
have resulted" from the preceding law, proceeds to amend it in 
some particulars which do not require mention. It was again 
amended in 1812,f and the preamble of the act declared that 
" the rapid increase in the manufacture of woolen cloth within 
the state of New York, and the great improvements in that 
branch of national industry, fully and satisfactorily evince that 
the bounties granted for that object have been highly useful, and 
that their continuance will be eminently beneficial." By this law 
the two principal state premiums were paid only for broadcloths. 

It appears by a report of the State Comptroller,! that the sums 
paid out in premiums under these laws were as follows : 

In 1809. _ $2,770 In 1813, $2,790 

1810... .' 3,490 1814, 3,350 

1811.. 4,095 1815, 3,970 

The law of 1812 expired by its own limitation at the end of 
1815, and was not renewed.^ The Council of the Society for the 
Promotion of Useful^ Arts reported through their chairman, in 
1815, that the liberal bounties granted by the state, " in combi- 
nation with other circumstances," had " contributed to raise in 
many respects, the fine cloths of America to a degree of perfec- 
tion equal to those manufactured in Europe."j[ 

* To obtain the first premium of $>150, open to the competition of manufactories, the speci- 
men of cloth was required to equal 200 yards, the second 150 yards, and the third 100 yards. 
The county specimens were required to equal 30 yards. The three first premiums, and the 
plate for the county specimens, were adjudged by the Society for the Promotion of Useful 
Arts — the county specimens by " a majority of the judges of the court of common pleas." 

j- Perhaps technically they were new acts. 

t Made March 5, 1816. 

§ I think the state defrayed no more money in premiums until the establishment of the 
Board of Agriculture in 1819, and then it divided $10,000 among the counties, to be paid out 
in various kinds of agricultural, &e., premiums. 

|| The chairman of the council was E. C. Genet, the famous minister of republican France, 
who produced such a commotion during Gen. AVashington's administration. He had settled 
down near Albany, in this state, married a daughter of Gov. George Clinton, and was an opu- 
lent and public spirited citizen. The report has one or two characteristic touches. It is not 
complimentary to the commercial restrictions of the two last administrations, and has a sly 
stroke at the " Philosophers" ! It is decidedly severe on duties intended " to check the im- 
portation of foreign manufactures" and "other disguised attempts at monopoly" ! 



32 

State Manufactures. 

As a specimen of the manufacturing industry of those days, I 
will present the following statistics, compiled from the census of 
1810. In that year the following fabrics were manufactured in 
New York : 

Yards. Value. 

Woolen goods made in families, 3,257,812 $2,850,585 

Cotton do do 216,013 69,124 

Flaxen do do 5,372,645 2,014,741 

Blended and unnamed cloths and stuffs made in families, . 180,659 63,230 

Tow cloth do do ... 21,721 6,516 

There were 33,068 looms, 413 carding machines, 427 fulling 
mills, and 26 cotton manufacturing establishments. I am not 
aware there was a woolen manufactory in the state. 

Effect of Peace of 1815 on Product and Manufacture of Wool. 

The Peace of Ghent, and the liberation of commerce which 
followed, exposed our infant manufactures, and our wool-growing, 
to the competition of the world. The exhaustion and derange- 
ment of our finances assisted in their overthrow. The revulsion 
from war prices to peace prices, in almost everything, was enor- 
mous, and it carried bankruptcy into every department of busi- 
ness, and mourning into every neighborhood of the land. Our 
manufactories perished. Merinos, which were valued at $1000 a 
head in 1809, sold for a dollar a head in 1815.* Speculating 
holders ceased, of course, to take any interest in them. Multi- 
tudes abandoned wool-growing altogether. Careless owners no 
longer paid any attention to preserving purity of blood. But 
the " most unkindest cut of all" that I ever heard of their 
receiving was the fear expressed, by an agricultural writer of 
that period residing in one of our northeastern counties, " that 
there was danger of the Merinos running out the native sheep." 



* The well known G. W. Featherstonhaugh, one of our most active agricultural improvers, 
and himself a breeder of Merinos, states expressly that he had seen such sheep so sold. I 
have the same fact from other reliable sources. (See Featherstonhaugh's Letter to Stephen 
Van Rensselaer, on Sheep Husbandry, <fec,, Memoirs of the N. Y. Board of Agriculture, vol. 
2, page 13S.) 



33 
United States Tariff Laws. 

In 1816 a tariff law was enacted by the federal government* 
which imposed a duty of 15 per centum, ad valorem, on wool, 
and 25 per centum, ad valorem, on woolen manufactures.! The 
duty on the latter was to be reduced to 20 per centum after the 
expiration of three years. 

This, as would be expected, produced no effect in favor of the 
growth of fine wools. There was little domestic demand for 
them. The Merinos continued without any considerable mar- 
ketable value until 1824. They became completely lost to public 
notice, and there v/as many a choice flock of which no trace can 
now be found. 

In 1824 a tariff was enacted which imposed a duty of 15 per 
centum, ad valorem, on wools costing less than 10 cents per 
pound at the place of export; 20 per centum on those costing 
more, until June 1, 1825 ; 25 per centum from that date to June 
1, 1826 ; and 30 per centum afterwards. On manufactures of 
woolj it imposed a duty of 30 per centum until June 30, 1825, 
and 33| per centum afterwards. 

The decided protection thus afforded to wool and its fabrics, 
conspired, with other circumstances, again to turn the attention 
of farmers to the production of that staple. Among these auxi- 
liary circumstances is to be mentioned the arrival of Saxon 
sheep in our country. The most extravagant ideas were formed 
of their value. The country, after so long a rest, was ready for 
another wool mania, and it set in. 

* Of the preceding general tariffs, that of 1789 imposed a duty of five per cent, ad valorem 
on woolens, and made all wools free of duty. The tariff of 1790 re-enacted the same provi- 
sions, and imposed a duty of 7-§ per cent, ad valorem on carpets, carpeting and wool hats. The 
tariff of 1792 again made wool free of duty, and imposed a duty of five per cent, ad valorem on 
woolens, except on carpets, stockings, mittens and hats, on which it imposed a duty of 10 
ditto. The tariff of 1794 raised the duty on carpets, stockings, mittens and wool hats to 15 
per cent, ad valorem; imposed a duty of 10 ditto on ready-made clothing, and also on "all 
goods, wares and merchandize not otherwise enumerated or described. " This provision included 
wool. The tariff of 1800 made no changes in the rates of duty on woolens, but raised the duty 
on the non-enumerated articles (including wool) paying a duty of 10 percent, under preceding 
law, to 12^ per cent ad valorem. The tariff of 1804 (to raise Mediterranean fund) added 2^ 
per cent, to all existing ad valorem duties. The tariff of 1812 doubled all permanent duties 
before imposed by law. This was followed by the tariff of 1816. 

] Except on wool hats, caps and clothing, which paid a duty of 30 per cent, ad valorem; 
stockings 20 ditto ; blankets, rugs, worsted goods and stuff goods 15 ditto ; yarn four cents per 
pound. 

t There were some exceptions. On blankets, worsted stuff goods and woolens not exceeding 
33j cents a yard, the duty was 25 per cent. ; and on carpets a specific duty of 50 cents a square 
yard. 

3 



34 

Introduction of Saxon Merinos. 

The following statement of the Saxon importations was embo- 
died in that report on sheep which, as already mentioned, I made 
to the State Agricultural Society in 1838. The facts were fur- 
nished by one of the members of the committee, the late Henry 
D. Grove, of Hoosic* 

" The first importation of Saxony sheep into the United States was 
made by Mr. Samuel Henshaw, a merchant of Boston, at the instance of 
Col. James Shephard, of Northampton. They were but six or seven in 
number. In 1824 Messrs. G. & T. Searle, of Boston, imported 77 Saxon 
sheep. They were selected and purchased by a Mr. Kretchman, a cor- 
respondent of the above firm, residing in Leipsic, and shipped at Bremen 
on board the American schooner Velocity. I was engaged to take charge 
of the sheep on the passage, and I also shipped six on my own account. 
I am sorry to say that as many as one-third of the sheep purchased by 
Kretchman (who shared profit and loss in the undertaking) were not 
pure blooded sheep. The cargo was sold at auction at Brooklyn, as 
' pure blooded Electoral Saxons,' and thus unfortunately in the very outset 
the pure and impure became irrevocably mixed. But I feel the greatest 
certainty that the Messrs. Searle intended to import none but the pure 
stock. The fault lay with Kretchman. In the fall of 1824, I entered 
into an arrangement with the Messrs. Searle to return to Saxony, and 
purchase, in connection with Kretchman, from 160 to 200 Electoral 
sheep. I was detained at sea seven weeks, which gave rise to the belief 
that I was shipwrecked and lost. When 1 finally arrived the sheep had 
been already bought by Kretchman. On being informed of what the 
purchase consisted, I protested against taking them to America, and 
insisted on a better selection, but to no purpose. A quarrel ensued 
between us. and Kretchman even went so far as to engage another to 
take charge of the sheep on their passage. My friends interposing, I 
was finally induced to take charge of them. The number shipped was 
167, fifteen of which perished on the passage. They were sold at Brigh- 
ton, some of them going as high as $400 to $450. A portion of this 
importation consisted of grade sheep, which sold as high as the pure 
bloods, for the American purchasers could not know the difference. It 
may be readily imagined what an inducement the Brighton sale held out 
to speculation, both in this country and Saxony. The German newspa- 
pers teemed with advertisements of sheep for sale, headed ' Good for the 
American market'; and these sheep, in many instances, were actually 
bought up for the American market at five, eight or ten dollars a head, 
when the pure bloods could not be purchased at from less than $30 to 
$40. In 1836, Messrs. Searle imported three cargoes, amounting in the 
aggregate to 513 sheep. They were about of the same character with 

* This gentleman was born and educated to the duties of a shepherd and flockmaster, in 
Prussian Saxony ; and I am sure I shall give no offence in expressing the opinion that he was 
the best practical shepherd of his day in our country. Mr. Grove was an ardent, decided man, 
prejudiced by early associations for the favorite sheep of his native country, and by the fact 
that his own skill produced exceptional results in their favor, and thus gave them an entire 
advantage when brought into comparison with rival varieties or flocks which were less per- 
fectly managed. But where he states any fact on his own knowledge, it can always be impli- 
citly relied on. The German fatherland never sent out a more incorruptible son. 



35 

their prior importations ; in the main good, but mixed with some grade 
sheep. On the same year a cargo of 221 arrived, on German account, 
Emil Bach, of Leipsic, supercargo. A few were good sheep and of pure 
blood ; but taken as a lot they were miserable. The owners sunk about 
$3000. Next came a cargo of 210, on German account, Wasmuss and 
Multer owners. The whole cost of these was about $1,125 in Germany. 
With the exception of a small number, procured to make a flourish on 
in their advertisements of sale, they were sheep having no pretensions 
to purity of blood. In 1827, the same individuals brought out another 
cargo. These were selected exclusively from grade flocks of a low cha- 
racter. On the same year the Messrs. Searle made their last importa- 
tation, consisting of 182 sheep. Of these I know little. My friends in 
Germany wrote me that thej'' were like their other importations, a mix- 
ture of pure and impure blooded sheep. It is due, however, to the 
Messrs. Searle to say, that as a whole, their importations were much 
better than any other made into Boston. 

" I will now turn your attention to the importations made into other 
ports. In 1825, thirteen Saxons arrived in Portsmouth. They were 
miserable ci-eatures. In 1826, one hundred and ninety-one sheep arrived 
in New York, per brig William, on German account. A portion of these 
were well descended and valuable animals. The rest were grade sheep. 
In June, the same year, the brig Louisa brought out 173, on German 
account. Not more than one-third of them had the least pretensions to 
purity of blood. Next we find 158, shipped at Bremen, on German 
account. Some were diseased before they left Bremen, and I am happy 
to state that twenty-two died before their arrival in New York. All I 
intend to say of them is, that they were a most curious and motley mess 
of wretched animals. The next cargo imported arrived in the brig Maria 
Elizabeth, under my own care. They were 165 in number, belonging to 
myself and F. Gebhard,' of New York. These sheep cost me $65 a head 
when landed in New York. They sold at an average of $50 a head, thus 
sinking about $2,400! I need not say that they were exclusively of 
pure blood. A cargo of 81 arrived soon after, but I know nothing of 
their quality. The next importation consisted of 184, on German ac- 
count, per brig Warren. With a few exceptions they were pure blooded 
and good sheep. We next have an importation of 200 by the Bremen 
ship Louisa. They were commonly called the ' stop sale sheep.' They 
were of the most miserable character, some of them being hardly half 
grade sheep. The ship Phebe Ann brought 120 sheep, of which I know 
little ; and sixty were landed at Philadelphia, with the character of 
which I am unacquainted. Having determined to settle in America, I 
returned to Saxony, and spent the winter of 1826-7 in visiting and exa- 
mining many flocks. I selected 115 from the celebrated flock of Macherns, 
embarked on board the ship Albion, and landed in New York June 27, 
1827. In 1828 I received 80 more from the same flock, selected by a 
friend of mine, an excellent judge of sheep. I first drove them to Shaftes- 
bury, adjoining the town of Hoosic, where I now reside. On their arri- 
val they stood me in $70 a head, and the lambs half that sum." 

The fires of speculation might have died out and a reaction 
ensued, when the unsuitableness of these sheep for our climate 
and systems of husbandry became apparent, had any time been 
given for cool reflection. But the year 1825 brought another of 



36 

those pecuniary revulsions, which periodically sweep like deso- 
lating tornadoes over our country. This is not the place to 
investigate its causes. The friends of the "American System," 
as the friends of high protective tariffs were then called, attribu- 
ted it to our excessive importations from Europe, and these views 
prevailed so far that the tariff of 1828 was enacted. 

U. S. Tariff Laws since 1824. 

The tariff of 1828 imposed a specific duty on wool of four cents 
per pound, and in addition thereto an ad valorem duty of 40 per 
cent, until 30th of June, 1829, when an additional duty of five 
per centum was to be added, and that amount annually, till the 
additional duty ad valorem amounted to 50 per centum : on man- 
factures of which wool formed a component part,* an ad valorem 
duty of 40 per centum until June 30, 1829, afterwards 45 per 
centum : on manufactures of wool which exceeded $4 the square 
yard, 45 per centum until June 30, 1829, and afterwards 50 per 
centum : on manufactures of wool (except flannels and baizes) 
not exceeding 33^ cents, 14 cents per square yard : on blankets, 
hosiery, ready made clothing, etc., 35 per centum : on the three 
most valuable kinds of carpets, 70 cents per square yard; the two 
next best kinds 40 cents ; the lower grades 32 cents. And the 
principle of minimums was now first applied to woolen tariffs, 
practically to increase the duties on the cheaper imported fabrics. 
Thus those not exceeding 50 cents per square yard were deemed 
to cost 50 cents ;f those exceeding 50 cents and not exceeding 
$1, were deemed to cost $1 ; those exceeding $1 and not exceed- 
ing $2.50, were deemed to cost $2.50 ; those exceeding $2.50 and 
not exceeding $4, were deemed to cost $4. 

The events, in manufacturing and wool growing circles, which 
followed the tariff of 1828, may not have been solely due to that 
law. However this may be, the facts themselves admit of no 
dispute. Both the manufacturers and producers were excited 
beyond the bounds of sober reason. 

The scenes exhibited among the latter would be remembered 
with amusement, had not their results proved so injurious to 
public and private interests. Intelligent and enterprising far- 

* Excepting carpetings, blankets, worsted stuff goods, bombazines, hosiery, mits, gloves, 
caps and bindings. 

f With the exceptions expressed in preceding note. 



37 

mers pulled down their barns to build greater, or, at least, made 
the most costly preparations for growing wool, and then sent 
one hundred or one thousand miles to purchase Saxon sheep at 
$100 or $500 a head. When the prodigies arrived, with what a 
blank look the proprietor, and with what an irrepressible titter 
the farm laborers, first surveyed the little strangers ! If they had 
been exposed to storms and hardships on their journey, they did 
indeed present a very disconsolate appearance. 

But who can see through the folly of his times ? The public 
were in the midst of a fine-wool cyclone. The manufacturer and 
producer talked of the exquisite fineness of this or that clip — 
but whether the sheep which bore it yielded much or little, had 
good or bad carcasses, were hardy or feeble, was scarcely a mat- 
ter of thought. Enormously exaggerated expectations of the 
future demand for Saxon wool were entertained ; it was to 
increase with our increasing population ; the tariff was to raise 
prices to the highest pitch ; and then the tariff and the high 
prices were to stand for generations, if not forever. Aladdin's 
lamp was, plainly, discovered ! 

It is remarkable that this Saxon mania had so little effect, 
comparatively, on the .estimated value of the descendants of the 
Spanish Merino in our country. They rose in value ; but their 
chief value appeared to be considered as resting on the fact that 
they would grade up more rapidly than common sheep toward 
the Saxon standard of fineness — in other words, make a better 
cross with the Saxon ! The idea that they had a separate value, 
approaching that of the latter, appears to have entered nobody's 
mind. Yet at that very time the average of Saxon wool was not 
ten cents higher a pound than Spanish, and the product of a 
Spanish sheep was worth more in market than the product of a 
Saxon sheep. Even the prices of fine wool did not rise until near 
the close of 1830. American producers of very fine wool have 
have ever fed on expectation, but never attained the fruition of 
their hopes.* 

* I trust no former breeder of the Saxons will complain of the tone of these remarks, when 
I say, "quorum pars fui." I was the owner of sheep before I was a year old, and have 
remained so since. Thirty-two years ago I became the owner of a pure Spanish flock. Subse- 
quently I purchased some Saxons, and was so gratified with the produce of a few picked sheep, 
that I bought and bred a flock usually numbering from 500 to 700. They were derived from 
the most celebrated flocks. I kept them several years and gave them a fair trial, before 
going back to the Spanish Merinos, which, very fortunately for myself, I had never entirely 
abandoned. 



38 

I will now trace down an account of the subsequent tariffs, in 
connection, for the purpose of rendering a comparison of their 
provisions more convenient. 

The tariff of 1828 produced a vast annual surplus of revenue 
over the expenditures of the government, and furnished means 
for a rapid extinction of the public debt. But the latter would 
be soon paid ; the discontents of a portion of our people against 
the duties imposed by the law, were loudly expressed ; and a 
change was felt to be necessary. This was made by the tariff of 
1832. 

This made wools not exceeding eight cents per pound in value 
at the place of export,* duty free ; and imposed a duty on those 
exceeding that value, of four cents per pound and 40 per centum 
ad valorem ; cloths not exceeding 35 cents per square yard, were 
to pay an ad valorem duty of five per centum, others 50 per 
centum ; shawls and ready-made clothing 50 per centum ; carpet- 
ing 63 and 35 cents per square yard ; flannels, baizes, &c, 16 
cents per square yard ; various minor articles from 10 to 25 per 
centum. 

This was a period of great inflation in the currency, and the 
proceeds of the immense sales of the public lands, together with 
the revenue collected, were still found greatly to exceed the 
wants of the government. This and the " nullification" of South 
Carolina led to the passage of what was termed the " compromise 
tariff" of 1833. 

The tariff of 1833 commenced a system of progressive reduc- 
tions in duties exceeding 20 per centum ad valorem, as follows : 
The reduction of one-tenth of such excess was to take place De- 
cember 31, 1833, and a tenth of the residue of the excess at the 
same date each second year until 1841, when half the residue was 
to be deducted, and the other half on the 30th day of June fol- 
lowing. The free wools (costing less than eight cents a pound) 
were to pay a duty of 20 per centum in 1842 and afterwards. 
The cloths which had paid five per centum (those costing not to 
exceed 35 cents a square yard) were immediately to pay 50 per 
centum, and then suffer the same biennial reduction in duties 
with the others. 



* The bill provided that if wools were mixed with dirt or other material to reduce its value 
to eight cents, the appraisers should appraise it at such price " as in their opinion it would 
liave cost had it not been so mixed." 



39 

From 1833 to 1837 the plethora in the money market continued 
and increased. Imports became enormous- — vastly exceeding 
those of any preceding period. They culminated in 1836. The 
following figures, in respect to manufactured textiles alone, 
will express the increase more readily than it can be done in 
words : 

Imports. 
1832 



Woolens. 


Cottons. 


Silks. Linen & Flax. 


Hemp. 


$9,992,424 


$10,399,653 


$9,248,907 $4,073,161 


$1,640,618 


21,080,003 


17,876,087 


22,980,212 9,307,493 


3,365,897 



In many other articles the gain was proportionable. In the 
single one of sugar, the advance, during the same period, in the 
value of the import was from two to twelve millions of dollars. 
The aggregate value of imports in 1836 was $189,980,035 ; the 
aggregate duties $30,991,510 ; and the average per centum of 
duties on imports 16j 3 q^. The sales of the public lands went 
on. The gradual reduction of the tariff of 1833 did not there- 
fore bring down the public revenues to the scale of expenditure, 
and a surplus of twenty-eight millions of dollars accumulated 
and was deposited with the states. 

An exigency, however, was approaching, which rendered it 
necessary to increase the duty on imports. The pecuniary revul- 
sion of 1837 fell upon the country. In that year the import of 
woolens sunk to $8,500,292 ; and in the succeeding year it rose 
to only $11,512,920. Other imports decreased in a somewhat 
corresponding ratio. The sale of public lands fell off. The gov- 
ernment debts were increasing ; and all saw that under the pres- 
sure of the times, the manufacturers could not possibly sustain 
themselves under the minimum of protection to be reached by 
the " compromise tariff." This led to the tariffs of 1841 and 1842, 
and to the changes they made in the duties on wool and woolens. 

The one year tariff of 1841 left the 20 per centum duties on 
woolens undisturbed, but struck out the 20 per centum duties on 
wools not exceeding eight cents in value at the place of expor- 
tation. 

The tariff of 1842 imposed a duty of five per centum ad valo- 
rem on wools costing seven cents and under, and raised it on 
higher wools to 30 per centum ad valorem and three cents per 
pound specific duty ; on manufactures of wool, except on carpets, 
&c, 40 per centum ad valorem ; on carpets of different qualities 
respectively 65, 55 and 30 cents per square yard, and on lower 



40 

grades 30 per centum ad valorem ; on other woolen articles 
duties ranging from 15 to 35 per centum.* 

The tariff of 1846 established an even ad valorem duty of 30 
per centum on all wools and on cloths. f Under its operation 
many of the principal woolen manufactories of the United States 
failed, and the manufacture of broadcloth was entirely broken up. 

The tariff of 185*7 made all wools costing 20 cents or Jess, free 
of duty, and lowered the duties on other wools to 24 per centum 
ad valorem. The duty on the principal manufactures of wool 
was also lowered to 24 per centum ad valorem. J 

The tariff of 1861 places the duty on wools costing less than 
18 cents, five per centum ad valorem ; on wools exceeding 18 
cents and not exceeding 24 cents, a specific duty of three cents 
per pound ; on wools exceeding 24 cents, a specific duty of nine 
cents per pound ; on woolen cloths, shawls and manufactures of 
every description, wholly or in part wool, not otherwise provided 
for, a duty of 12 cents per pound, and twenty-five per centum ad 
valorem ; on the various descriptions of carpets, 25, 30, 40 and 
50 cents per square yard ; on shawls of which wool is the chief 
component, 16 cents per pound and 20 per centum ad valorem; 
on blankets, wholly or in part wool, of different values, respec- 
tively, 6 cents per pound and 10 per centum ad valorem, 6 cents 
per pound and 25 per centum ad valorem, and 12 cents a pound 
and 20 per centum ad valorem ; on delaines, cashmere, etc., wholly 
or part wool, grey or uncolored, and other grey and uncolored 
goods of similar description, 25 per centum ad valorem. This 
bill contains so many provisions that no analysis of them can be 
presented here without consuming too much space. I have made 
out a table of them which I will subjoin in Appendix A. 

•Blankets not exceeding 75 cents each, 15 per centum ad valorem; all others 25 ditto; 
worsted not otherwise specified 30 ditto ; hearth rugs 40 ditto ; yarn, mits, gloves, caps, bind- 
ing and hosiery, 30 ditto; coach laces 35 ditto ; flannels, bookings and baizes, 14 cents per 
square yard. 

f On carpets of wool of all kinds, ready-made clothing, caps, gloves, leggins, mits, socks, 
stockings, wove shirts, drawers, etc., not otherwise provided for, the duty was 30 per centum 
ad valorem ; on manufactures wholly or in part worsted, woolen and worsted yarn, baizes, book- 
ings, flannels and floor cloths, 25 per centum ad valorem; on blankets of all kinds, hats, hat- 
bodies and woolen listings, 20 per centum ad valorem. 

J On cloths, carpets, delaines, ready-made clothing, rugs, &c, 24 per centum ad valorem; 
on worsteds, yarns, baizes, bookings, flannels, floor cloths, &c, 19 ditto; on all blankets, wool 
hats, &c, 15 ditto. 



41 



Prices of Wool Since 1824. 

The following table of the prices of wool in Boston for thirty- 
eight years, was prepared, at my request, by George Livermore, 
Esq., the eminent wool commission merchant of that city, whose 
name is an ample guaranty of its entire accuracy. It is undoubt- 
edly the most extended list of wool prices which has ever been 
made out in our country from reliable data. The average, and 
not the extreme prices, for each quarter are given. 

I have added a column indicating the tariff laws in force at 
the different periods. 

Let me preface the table by stating that I learn from various 
sources that from 1800 to 1807 wool bore a low and mostly a 
nominal price in our country; that in 1807 and 1808 full blood 
Merino wool was worth about $1 a pound ;f that it advanced in 
1809 to about $2 a pound, t and continued at not far from that 
price during the war, some selling at $2.50 a pound ; that in 1815 
it again sunk to a low price, and so remained until 1824. 



Prices Current of Wool in Boston. 



Tariff and 
time of 
taking 

effect. Year. 
1824. 



June 30. ( 



January, 
March . . . 
July 
October . . 

1825. January. 
April 
July 
October . 

1826. January. 
April . . . 

IJune. . . • 
October . 
1827. January. 
April.. 

July 

October . , 
January. 
April 
July 



1828. 



Quarter ending* 



Medium. 
45 



33 



52 


45 


40 


37 


30 


27 


44 


38 


33 


37 


33 


28 


44 


36 


30 


36 


31 


26 


42 


32 


25 


40 


30 


25 


44 


36 


28 


48 


40 


33 



* The prices, it will be observed, are not given strictly by quarters in the table anterior to 
1827. 

f Col. Humphreys, in a MS. letter lying before me, says that he sold for that price in 1807. 

J In 1809 Chancellor Livingston sold his unwashed full blood wool for $2.00; seven-eighths 
blood for $1.50, three-fourths for SI. 25 ; one-half blood for 75 cents; common for S7{ cents. 
See his Essay, pp. 185, 186. 



42 



Tariff and 

time of 

taking 

effect. Year. Quarter ending Fine. 

Sept. 1. ( October .47 

1829 . January 55 

April 43 

July 45 

October 38 

1830. January 40 

April 48 

July 62 

October 70 

1831. January 70 

April 70 

July 75 

October 70 

1832. January 65 

April 60 

July 50 

October 50 

{ 1833. January 

A pril 

July 62 

October 65 

Dec. 31. ( 1834. January 70 

April 65 

July 60 

October 60 

1835. January 60 

April 65 

July 65 

October 65 

1836. January 65 

April 65 

July 70 

October 70 

1837. January 70 

April 70 

July 

October 50 

1838. January 50 

April 50 

July 45 

October 55 

1839. January 55 

April 55 

July 58 

October 60 

1840. January 50 

April 48 

July 46 

October 46 

1841 . January 52 

April 52 

July 50 

October 48 

1842. January 48 

April 46 

July 43 

October 37 

1843. January 35 

April 34 

July 35 

October 36 

1844 . January 37 

April 45 

July 45 

October 50 

1845. January 45 

April 45 

July 40 

October 38 



Oct. 1 

ta 

So 5 i 

Aug. 30 



edium. 


Coarse. 


40 


31 


45 


35 


35 


30 


35 


30 


31 


27 


35 


30 


38 


32 


50 


40 


60 


47 


60 


47 


60 


50 


63 


50 


60 


50 


55 


45 


50 


40 


40 


30 


40 


30 


55 


42 


55 


45 


60 


47 


55 


42 


50 


40 


50 


40 


50 


40 


58 


45 


58 


45 


58 


45 


58 


45 


58 


45 


60 


50 


60 


50 


60 


50 


60 


50 


40 


33 


42 


35 


42 


35 


37 


32 


48 


37 


48 


38 


48 


38 


50 


40 


52 


46 


45 


38 


41 


36 


38 


33 


38 


33 


45 


37 


45 


37 


44 


35 


41 


33 


43 


35 


42 


33 


38 


31 


31 


26 


30 


25 


29 


25 


30 


26 


32 


26 


31 


26 


37 


30 


37 


31 


42 


33 


38 


31 


38 


33 


35 


30 


34 


28 



43 



Tariff and 
time of 
taking 

effect. Tear. 
I 1846. 



Dec. 1. I 



Quarter ending 



1849. 



1850. 



1854. 



1856. 



1857. 



July 1. ( 



1859. 



L 1861. 

April 1. ( 

INI 



January. 
April . . . 
July.... 
October . 
January. 
April . . . 
July ... 
October . 
January . 
April . . . 
July ... 
October . 
January . 
April . . . 
July 
October . 
January . 
April . . . 
July . . . 
October . 
January . 
April . . . 
July ... 
October . 
January. 
April . . . 

July 

October . 
January. 
April . . . 
July ... 
October . 
January. 
April . . . 
July . . . 
October . 
January. 
April . . . 
July ... 
October . 
January. 
April . . . 
July . . . 
October . 
January . 
April . • . 
July ... 
October . 
January . 
April . . . 
July ... 
October . 
January. 
April . . . 
July ... 
October . 
January . 
April . . . 
July ... 
October . 
January . 
April . . . 
July ... 
October . 



Fine. 


Medium. 


Coarse. 


40 


35 


30 


38 


33 


28 


38 


33 


28 


36 


30 


22 


47 


38 


30 


47 


40 


31 


47 


40 


31 


47 


40 


30 


45 


38 


30 


43 


37 


30 


38 


33 


28 


33 


30 


22 


33 


30 


23 


42 


36 


30 


40 


35 


28 


42 


36 


30 


47 


40 


33 


45 


38 


31 


45 


38 


32 


45 


38 


35 


45 


37 


32 


50 


44 


40 


47 


42 


37 


45 


40 


33 


42 


37 


32 


42 


36 


31 


45 


33 


32 


50 


42 


37 


58 


55 


50 


62 


55 


50 


60 


53 


48 


55 


50 


48 


53 


47 


42 


57 


52 


44 


45 


37 


30 


41 


36 


32 


40 


35 


32 


43 


35 


32 


50 


40 


33 


52 


41 


36 


50 


38 


35 


57 


43 


37 


55 


43 


38 


60 


55 


45 


58 


50 


43 


60 


56 


43 


56 


48 


40 


38 


30 


26 


40 


33 


28 


42 


35 


30 


42 


37 


30 


55 


42 


36 


60 


52 


45 


60 


46 


37 


55 


40 


35 


60 


49 


42 


60 


50 


40 


52 


45 


40 


OD 


50 


40 


50 


45 


40 


45 


40 


37 


45 


37 


32 


40 


35 


32 


47 


47 


52 



From the beginning of 182*7, from which the above prices pre- 
sent the averages of each quarter, to the close of 1861, a period 



44 

of 35 years, the average price of fine wool was 50^ cents; of 
medium, 42 T 8 7 cents ; of coarse, 35^ cents. Fine wool averaged 
15 per centum higher than medium, and medium 14 per centum 
higher than coarse. 

The wools classed in the table as fine, I should say included 
Saxon, grade Saxon, and choice lightish-fleece American Merino ; 
the medium included American Merino and grade down, say to 
half blood ; the coarse included wools one-fourth blood Merino 
and below. Each of these classes, of course, embraced wools of 
various qualities and prices. 

Mr. George William Bond, wool broker of Boston, has prepared 
for me a valuable list of prices of Ohio State wools, extending 
back for twenty-one years ; and Messrs. Tellkampf & Kitching, 
wool brokers of New York, a valuable list of prices of New York 
State wools. Both of the last named lists and some others will 
be found in Appendix B. 

The following table was prepared for me by the Acting Regis- 
ter of the Treasury, at the request of my friend, Hon. R. H. Gil- 
let, of Washington, D. C., former Register of the Treasury. 



45 









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46 

The value of the annual imports of manufactures of wool, for 
nineteen preceding years, and a table exhibiting what proportion 
of the imports of wool, for a number of years, fell below the 
dutiable price, will be found in Appendix C. 

The following, extracted from the Report of the Boston Board 
of Trade on Wool, in 1859, was " furnished by George Win. Bond, a 
member of the Board, and by George Livermore, a member of 
the Government of the Board." 

WOOLEN MACHINERY. 

Table showing the quantity and classification of Woolen Machinery in New York and 
New England. 







N. Hamp- 


Ver- 


Massachu- 


Connec- 


Rhode 


New 




Maine. 


shire. 


mont. 


setts. 


ticut. 


Island. 


York. 




9 


3 


22 


165 


112 


33 


20 




. 28 


40 


44 


285 
82 


95 


82 


103 


Cotton warp cloths and carp 


31 


Stocking yarn and hosiery. . 


. 6 


12 


6 


30 


74 




33 


Worsted and woolen yarn. . . 




10 




76 




8 




Blankets and flannels 


. 40 


81 


11 


185 


19 




33 






58 




67 








Carpets 




2 




62 


70 




47 










5 








Shawls 








10 




7 


26 


Fellings 








14 


30 






Negro cloths and jeans .... 












53 




Linsays and dometts 












42 






8 


18 


39 


18 


9 




468 


Total number of sets . . 


. 91 


228 


122 


999 


409 


225 


No. of establishments . 


. 32 


56 


56 


154 


93 


56 


208 



The above classification is not strictly accurate, as it is impos- 
sible in some mills to say how many sets are on each description. 

Mr. Bond writes me (January 20, 1862 :) "In the rest of the 
free states there are about 500 sets of cards, as nearly as I can 
reach it." 

Mr. Livermore writes me (January 26, 1862 :) " I should not 
like to assert that there is not a broadcloth manufactory in New 
England, though I do not know of any machinery, now running, 
of that kind of goods." 

A manufacturer of standing, in our state, who made broad- 
cloths prior to 1846, writes me, (January 23, 1862,) that there 
are no broadcloths made in the United States, so far as he knows, 
except such as are made for the army and navy ; and a few cotton 
warp cloths called " Union." 

* Those classed sundries are very small. 



47 

I have presented the preceding statistics, because they embrace 
facts which are inseparably and importantly connected with the 
progress of sheep and wool husbandry in the United States ; and 
without them much of the history I am sketching would be mean- 
ingless — a mere record of apparently casual events. I had con- 
templated accompanying them with similar statistics of the 
woolen production, trade and legislation of other nations ; but I 
found that while those of them which could be obtained in this 
country would swell this paper to a volume, they still would lack 
a satisfactory degree of completeness without sending to Europe 
for more, for which there would be no time. 

Having presented a class of facts, the mutual relations and 
bearings of which have been made the topics of much partizan 
discussion — which in some cases, indeed, have constituted what 
are termed "issues" between parties — I feel constrained to omit 
my own deductions and conclusions in respect to them, leaving 
every person to form his own opinions on the subject. 

Decline in the Production or Fine Wools. — The Spanish 

SUPERSEDES THE SaXON MeRINO. 

The small difference made in the prices of different qualities of 
wool, in our country, necessarily proved fatal to the success of 
the Saxon Merino. The improvement of the imported sheep in the 
hands of such breeders as Mr. Grove, Mr. Scoville, of Connecti- 
cut, Mr. Reed, of Pennsylvania, Messrs. Wells & Dickinson, of 
Ohio, Mr. Cockrill, of Tennessee, and many others, was manifest ; 
and in some cases it more than kept pace with what may be 
termed the reform movement of Baron Yon Sternburg, Prince 
Lichnowski, and their compatriots in Germany. 

Two years after the introduction of the Saxons (i. e. in 1826) 
the average price of their wool sunk within ten cents of that of 
full blood Merino wool. It never subsequently rose to any higher 
proportionable price, while the difference was frequently only five 
or eight cents a pound. The best breeders of pure Saxons, who 
owned large flocks, could not bring up the mean product of their 
whole number to three pounds of wool per head. In 1840, Mr. 
Grove's admirable flock — not exceeding about 200 t. : heep — yielded 
an average of 2 lbs. 11 oz. per head, and he published this product* 
as a proof of the value of his favorite breed, in that controversy 

* See his letter to me, Transactions N. Y. State Agricultural Society, 1841, p. 333. 



48 

between the advocates of the Saxon and Spanish Merinos which 
was then filling our agricultural publications. 

This controversy opened about 1835. The Saxons had by far 
the greatest number of distinguished names, but the Spanish 
sheep had nearly all the facts on their side. As early as 1831-2, 
Mr. Jarvis' full blood Merinos yielded about four pounds of wool 
per head. And persons who obtained small choice lots of him, 
from the period of 1835, could obtain ewes yielding nearly or 
quite 4^ lbs. per head. In 1835, Francis Rotch, the celebrated 
cattle and sheep breeder of Morris (then Louisville) New York, 
published the statement that his flock of Spanish Merinos yielded 
an average of 4^ lbs. of " well washed wool." My own flock, 
larger than Mr. Rotch's, yielded an equal amount. This was 
also undoubtedly true of the flock of Stephen Atwood, of Wood- 
bury, Connecticut ; of John T. Ritch, of Shoreham, Vermont ; 
and of man}^ other flocks descended from those of the two last 
named gentlemen. 

And the Spanish sheep, then the subject of great attention — 
and of attention directed specially towards increase of fleece — 
was rapidly adding to the disparity between itself and the Saxon 
in this particular. In 1844, I purchased a small lot of Rich ewes 
in Vermont, which yielded an average of five pounds of washed 
wool, at a year old. The same year a little flock of thirty (de- 
scended from Col. Humphreys' sheep) yielded me an average of 
5 lbs. 13| oz. of washed wool.* 

In 1845, Mr. Stephen Atwood wrote to the author of the Ame- 
rican Shepherd, that his flock consisted of 150, half ewes and half 
rams and wethers ; that his ewes yielded five pounds of washed 
wool per head, and his lambs an equal amount ; that his wethers 
yielded six pounds, and his rams from seven to nine pounds ; that 
his heaviest ewe's fleece in the preceding spring was 6 lbs. 6 oz., 
and the heaviest ram's fleece 12 lbs. 4 oz. 

It is my impression that several other small flocks, whose 
product of wool was published at that period, yielded 



* Two of the number were rams, and four of the ewes had two years' fleeces on — but, on the 
other hand, a portion of them were yearlings and two year olds, which, yeaned at the customary 
time and treated in the customary way in my flock, always fall considerably short of the fleeces 
of grown sheep. My impression at the time was, that the fleeces of the 28 ewes, including the 
double ones, did not weigh more than would the fleeces of the same sheep at three or four years 
old, without any double ones. The sheep were not housed except in winter, and were wholly 
unpampered. See my detailed statement of their keep, &c, in Transactions N. Y. State Ag. 
Society, 1844. They drew the first premium of the Society for best managed flock. 



49 

about the same amount ; but none of those statements are at 
hand. 

Many of the Saxon breeders strove to shut their eyes to such 
facts as the preceding. They called loudly for more discrimi- 
nating prices from the manufacturers, and for high protective 
tariffs from the Government. The first did not come ; the last 
did not remain. The financial crash of 1837 carried the price 
of Saxon wool absolutely below a remunerative point. There 
was a very brief rally towards the close of 1839, but it again 
sunk to the non-remunerative point, and has never since regained 
it. From that period the difference in the prices of Saxon and 
Spanish Merino wool has not usually exceeded five or eight cents 
per pound. After that failure of our broadcloth manufacturers 
which followed the tariff of 1846, the breeders of Saxons gave 
up all hope, and rapidly relinquished their flocks or crossed them 
with other breeds or varieties. 

The American Merino. 

When the Saxon sheep disappeared, the improved Spanish 
Merino again came into general favor. Thus far I have used the 
term "Spanish" in speaking of them, but it is quite time to 
change our ovine nomenclature in this particular. France and 
Saxony have produced distinct and self-sustaining* varieties of the 
Merino, and given them their national names. The American 
variety, though departing far less essentially from the original 
standard of the race, is equally distinct and equally self-sustain- 
ing. Let us then hereafter talk of American instead of Spanish 
Merinos, unless we mean by the latter designation the present 
inferior sheep of Spain. 

The American Merinos, when again brought, into public favor 
between 1840 and 1845, were found divided into several as well 
marked families as were their Leonese ancestors in 1800. This 
arose partly from the preservation of the original family blood 
unmixed, and partly from the courses of breeding adopted by 
their owners. 

Premising that the order in which I place them implies no 
attempted gradation as to merit, I will proceed to describe : 

1. Mr. Jarvis', or the Mixed Leonese sheep of the United States. 
"What varieties of his imported sheep he bred together has already 
been made to appear. Those of their descendants which I saw 

* That is, reproducing their characteristics in their offspring with regularity. 
4 



50 

twenty years ago, were not perhaps quite as light in weight, long 
in the legs and neck, and narrow in the carcass as the Spanish 
sheep measured by Petri, but they were equally remote from the 
compactness and substance of the American sheep, whose mea- 
surements are subjoined to Petri's table, or of the family I shall 
describe as No. 3. Their skins were thin, loose, and usually 
exhibited but few corrugations, and these were confined to the 
ram and to the neck of that animal. They had but a small 
amount of external gum, and were accordingly quite white — 
whiter than any Spanish sheep imported into this country except 
the Escurial. They had little wool below the eyes or below the 
knees and hocks. Their wool was long, but shorter on the belly, 
and of medium thickness. On a portion of them it divided about 
the shoulders and fore parts into those small pointed tufts which 
indicate thin wool. The fleece was very fine, very even, and 
opened on a high tinted, rosy skin, with a brilliancy and style 
which almost rivalled the Saxon. The yolk was thin, colorless, 
and easily liberated in washing. I have never seen any other 
Merino wool so closely resembling Saxon, or of so profitable a 
character to the manufacturer. Altogether the sheep bore an 
obvious likeness to the Spanish Escurial, and I have no doubt 
that Mr. Jarvis gave a preference to rams of that variety while 
he was forming his mixed family. They were, however, a heavier 
fleeced, and for this country, a more valuable sheep than those of 
the Royal cabana of Spain. 

2. I take up these next as the descendants of an older import- 
tation than No. 3, and I am almost inclined to dub them the 
American Infantados. They were bred from rams and ewes of 
Col. Humphreys' importation, by Stephen Atwood, of Connecti- 
cut.* I think that in 1840 they were about as heavy sheep as 

* Mr. Atwood writes me that in the spring of 1813 he bought a ewe of Col. Humphreys for 
$120, and put her to a ram "that Younglove Cutler bought of Col. Humphreys in 1807." 
This was the starting point of his flock. He put their descendants to rams raised from Col. 
Humphreys' sheep in his neighborhood, until about 1830, after which period he used rams of 
his own raising. This is the distinct and positive statement of a man whose character is con- 
sidered good by those who know him. It has been uniformly made and persisted in by him 
from a period long anterior to the time when the public attached any particular importance to 
the fact whether the sheep were descended exclusively from Col. Humphreys' importation or 
not. Though I own sheep of this family, I haver never regarded that point of particular 
importance; and I commenced sifting out the facts on the present occasion leaning towards the 
opposite belief. But I find Mr. Atwood's statements persistent, coherent, reasonable in them- 
selves, originally made under no peculiar motive of interest, and he certainly ought to knoio 
the history of his own flock better than those who are not even his near neighbors. To the 



51 

Mr. Jarvis', and had the same Spanish figure — that is to say, they 
were taller, thinner, longer necked and finer boned than our pre- 
sent Merinos. I should say they were a little flatter in the ribs 
than No. 1, and a little deeper in the chest. They were peculi- 
arly deep-chested, and not only had a very marked Spanish ap- 
pearance, but the marked individuality of sheep from one cabana. 
Their skins were mellow, loose, and of a fine deep color. The 
ram had a pendulous dew-lap, and some moderate sized neck- 
folds. Some of the ewes had dew-laps, but otherwise their skins 
were free from corrugation. The external color of the fleece was 
very dark, sometimes a pitchy black, shining and sticky in hot 
weather, and forming a rigid crust in cold weather. The inside 
was so filled with yolk that every fibre seemed to have been dipped 
in it, and it often stood in small globules between the fibres. The 
inside yolk was thin, generally colorless, and perfectly limpid. 
The sheep were not wooled below the eye, knee and hock. The 
wool was rather short — considerably shorter than that of No. 1 
and No. 3, and did not carry out its length so well on the belly, 
forehead, cheeks and legs near the knees as No. 3. The wool 
stood thicker than on No. 1, and often seemed vastly thicker 
when grasped by the hand externally, by reason of its gummy 
coating. I saw some, however t which, under this gummy coating, 

only individual who has, so far as I know, impeached the accuracy of Mr. Atwood's statements 
I recently applied for a history of his own flock, only for the purpose of giving him the place 
and credit to which I supposed him entitled as a breeder of the pure descendants of imported 
Merino sheep. Something in the reply, and something in another letter received at the same 
period, induced me to question him in relation to Mr. Atwood*s flock. He says that prior to 
about the year 1822, Mr. Atwood s sheep were Negrettis — " the hardest kind of Spanish 
sheep ;" that Atwood then bought of him (my informant) a ram got by a ram " bred by Daniel 
Bacon, out of his imported Eseurial buck;" that some years after, Mr. Atwood hired a buck of 

(name illegible) that was got by his (my informant's) " best Eseurial buck ;" that "from 

these two bucks he (Atwood) has obtained his great credit." My informant says his own ewes 
were Infantados. (See' preceding note where the importation of Atwater and Peck is spoken 
of.) Admitting the sale, purchase and hiring above alleged, does it prove anything ? Mr/ 
Atwood not only bought or hired, but used a Saxon ram one year ; but, wiser than his neigh- 
bors, promptly abandoned him and weeded all his lambs out of the flock. If there was any 
Merino flock in the United States specially unlike the Escurials, it was Mr. Atwood's twenty 
years ago, and the same is true now. How, then, could his flock have obtained "their credit" 
from Eseurial rams ! What authority has my informant for pronouncing sheep notoriously bred 
from a ewe from Col. Humphreys' own flock, to be Negrettis, and " the hardest kind of Span- 
ish sheep ?" Judge of my astonishment when I find the same person claiming, in a, published 
letter 17 years ago, that his own sheep, instead of being originally Infantados, were "a part 
of them Negrettis and a part Montarcos !" These slips of memory at least admonish us that 
similar ones may have occurred in other instances. Again I say the matter is of little conse- 
quence, except as one of justice to an old breeder who deserves well of the public; and when 
such details are given at all, they should be correctly given. 



52 

Iiad thinnish wool. The quality and style of the wool were ex- 
cellent. Its curves were especially bold and showy, and were 
continued regularly throughout the entire length of the fibre, 
showing even on the tips. The fleece had great evenness, and 
nothing approaching to hair in any part. The sheep had not the 
appearance of being as hardy or as easily kept as No. 3. To my 
eye they looked like animals which had attained great uniformity 
and strong points of excellence by in-and-in breeding, but that 
this had been carried so far that they were on the point of losing 
constitution. It would seem, however, that this opinion was 
unfounded, for we now have flocks of their unmixed descendants 
which, after twenty years more of in-and-in breeding, have been 
converted into low, compact, strong, heavy and hardy sheep. 

3. The American Paulars. They were purchased of the im- 
porter by Andrew Cock, a breeder of character residing near 
Flushing, Long Island.* They were sold in 1823 to Hon. Charles 
Rich, M. C, and Leonard Bedell, of Shoreham, Vermont. Twenty 
years ago they were heavy, low, broad sheep, full in the bosom 
and buttocks, with strong bones, thick short necks, and thick 
coarse heads. The ewes had deep, pendulous, and sometimes 
plaited dewlaps, and folds of moderate size about the neck ; the 
rams had both in a greater degree. The external color of the 
fleece was dark leaden gray, or blackish, indicating consider- 
ably more yolk than No. 1, and considerably less than No. 2. 
They were not wooled below the eye, and not commonly below 
the knee and hock.f The wool was long, and retained its length 
unusually well on the belly, forehead, cheeks, and on the legs 
down to the knees and hocks. It was very thick over all the 
parts, and in many instances broke into masses of the same size 
on the belly as on the sides, instead of the small pointed tufts 
usual in that place on No. 1 and No. 2. This indicated great 
thickness of fleece. The fleece was considerably inferior to that 
of the preceding families in fineness, evenness and general style. 
It was sometimes quite coarse on the thigh, and hairs were occa- 
sionally seen protruding from the edges of the neck folds. The 
lambs were often covered with hair when born, and their big, 
bony legs and thick coated ears were marked with patches of tan 

* Their full pedigree, sustained by the most ample testimony — testimony never since dis- 
puted — was published in the American Agriculturist and Cultivator, in 1844. 

f I speak of wool of length and quality fit to be put in the fleece when sheared. Nearly all 
of them had short, coarsish wool on the legs, and particularly on the hind legs. 



53 

color. On the ears this color continued to show faintly, on close 
examination, through life. They were better nurses and hardier 
than either of the other families : they were precisely the negli- 
gent farmers sheep. I have often seen a flock of them, slightly 
sheltered by a haystack, stand composedly chewing their cuds, 
and treading down the drifting snow under their feet, when the 
wild northwest gale " curled up" every other shivering animal 
on the farm.* 

4. I do not intend specially to classify under this head, and 
attempt to describe, any separate family. Chancellor Living- 
ston's flock, I have understood, was preserved by his descendants 
until about 1840, and for aught I know, later. Of its later his- 
tory and character I know nothing. There were a number 
of breeders in all the Northern and Eastern states, who commen- 
ced flocks with imported Spanish Merinos. Most of them crossed 
with the Saxons after 1824, and lost the Spanish characteristics. 
But there were exceptions in probably nearly every state where 
the Merino was established. I know of several such instances in 
New York, but the flocks have not attained sufficient excellence 
to deserve special mention now, or they have been so crossed 
with other flocks — and particularly with those classified under 
the three preceding heads — as to retain no distinct and separate 
family character. Most of the early flockmasters of New York 
were men of large possessions, and were rather wool growers than 
breeders. In other words, the production of wool was the pri- 
mary consideration with them, instead of the production of a 
small annual surplus of rams and ewes to be sold at extra prices 
for breeding purposes. On the other hand, several persons in 
Connecticut and Vermont fortunately devoted themselves spe- 
cially to breeding, and in their ardor to improve and to excel 

* It may not be amiss to state that on the 8th of February, 1862, a number of the most pro- 
minent breeders and friends of these respective families of sheep, in Addison county, Vermont, 
met me by appointment at the house of Hon. M. W. C. Wright, of Shoreham, and conceiving 
that it was a subject on which they had a right to be heard, I read to them the preceding des- 
criptions of their sheep as they were twenty years ago; my account of the results of crossing 
these families, (presently to appear,) and, indeed, everything pertaining to their sheep in 
this paper, except the references to and descriptions of their present individual flocks, which 
I did not read — which, indeed, were not then written. 

I solicited these gentlemen to correct my statements wherever they thought I had fallen 
into error, apprising them that if after such an invitation they should fail to do so, they, as 
much as myself, would be committed to the accuracy of my assertions. No corrections were 
offered, but on the contrary, Messrs. Hammond, Rich, Wright and others expressed their 
unqualified affirmative assent to those assertions. 



54 

each other and the Saxon breeders, made great and beneficial 
changes in the characteristics of the breed. Accordingly, when 
the restoration of the American Merinos to public favor took 
place, about 1845, New England had choicer individual sheep 
than New York, and there was a general importation of them, 
and especially of breeding rams, from the former into the latter, 
and into the other states lying west of New England. These 
importations superseded the families existing in those states, or 
were blended with them, and thus merged the individuality of 
the latter as separate families. From that period, the American 
Paulars and Infantados* have been bred distinct in all parts of 
our country. Those who then procured Mr. Jarvis' " mixed 
Leonese " sheep, have generally since crossed them with one or 
both the other families. 

It would be an instructive lesson could I accurately trace out 
the modes and the results reached by the most noted breeders of 
these separate or mixed families. To attempt it without long 
and minute investigation, would be not only unfair, but excess- 
ively presumptuous ; and even after the most careful examina- 
tion, it would be a very delicate affair, to say the least of it, to 
assume to sit in judgment on the comparative merits of flocks 
which are now keen competitors for public favor, and concerning 
which the opinions of the most intelligent and experienced flock- 
masters differ. Accordingly I shall waive it, after reserving to 
myself the right of selecting some examples when I come to dis- 
cuss the subject of crossing. 

Suffice it to say, that each of the separate families and the 
crosses between them, or between them and other pure American 
Merino stocks, have improved enormously within twenty years. 

The American Merinos, the measurements, etc. of which I sub- 
joined to Petri's table, exhibit some of the marked changes which 
have taken place in the form of the breed not only since their 
orignal importation, but within the last twenty years. And if 
that table had been more complete in useful data, these facts 

* I have no wish to impose a new name on the public for the "Atwood sheep," as they are 
commonly termed, but I adopt this designation myself, first, because I believe it to be the 
correct one ; secondly, because it is convenient and proper to have a family name for these 
well known sheep; and thirdly, because I can see no propriety in giving them permanently 
the name of an individual, who, if he deserves (as he undoubtedly does) great credit for pre- 
serving their blood unmixed, and effecting considerable improvements on the original stock, 
neither imported them nor brought them to their present high degree of perfection. If they 
are to be named after any man, that man should be Col. Humphreys. 



55 

would be still more apparent. The American sheep, weighed and 
measured for that table, were not, as already remarked, extraor- 
dinary ones in any particular pertaining to the carcass — were 
such as can be found in abundance in any prime flock. "When 
their length of leg, neck and body, and breadth of hip are com- 
pared with each other and with their weight, their compactness 
and massiveness of form become a necessary corollary ; and here 
the disparity between them and the original Spanish sheep is 
most striking. The longer neck and legs, and shorter bodies of 
the latter, remind us of the Saxons. 

The improvement of the fleece has kept pace with that of the 
form. In prime flocks, the quality is at least as good as that of 
the original Spanish sheep, while the quantity has more than 
doubled. 

The very best Merinos imported into the United States between 
1800 and 1813, yielded from 3^ to 4 lbs. of brook washed wool 
in the ewe, and from 6 to 7 lbs. in the ram. Mr. Dupont's Don 
Pedro, the heaviest fleeced imported Spanish Merino ram, I think, 
on record, produced 8 lbs. 8 oz., of brook washed wool. We have 
seen that ewes in small flocks, descended from the above, yielded 
an average of 4| lbs. of wool, washed in the same way, as early 
as 1835. In 1844-45, the product had risen to 5 lbs. in some 
small flocks ; that of rams to 9 lbs., and in individual instances 
much higher.* At the present day it is easier to find small flocks 
yielding an average of 6 lbs. of washed wool, than it was in 1845 
to find those yielding 5 lbs., or in 1835 those yielding 4| lbs. 

I speak of " small" flocks, because in large ones equal averages 
are never obtained. It would be difficult, and probably imprac- 
ticable at this time, to find a flock of 400 or 500 ewes, kept in the 
ordinary way, which would produce an average of more than 5 
lbs. of well washed prime Merino wool. But from these, 100 
could be drawn, which, subdivided into a couple of flocks, 
given " the range" of an entire farm in summer and well kept in 
winter, would yield a pound more of wool a head. The heaviest 
fleeced 50 of this hundred, bought by a breeder, protected from 

* See preceding statement of Mr. Atwood, that in 1845 his heaviest ewe's fleece was 6 Ids. 6 
t>z., and his heaviest ram*s fleece 12 lbs. 4 oz. My premium ram's first fleece in 1844, was 
10 lbs. of well washed wool. In 1847, a ewe of mine produced 7 lbs. 10 oz. of well washed 
wool. (See portrait of her in Sheep Husbandry in the South, p. 134.) In 1849, a ram of 
mine yielded 13 lbs. and two or three ounces of well washed wool. I think that Mr. Atwood 
then probably had rams which exceeded that amount. 



56 

all storms, and pampered for show, would yield nearly 7 lbs. of 
washed wool a head, and a few scattering ones from 8 to even 9 
lbs. Should one of the very heaviest fleeced ewes of the flock 
fail to have a lamb at two or three years old, and become very 
fat, she might produce 10 lbs. of wool the succeeding year. Prime 
rams unwashed and housed from storms from the middle of August 
to shearing* produce from 18 to 20 lbs., and occasionally if large 
and very highly kept, two, three, and even five pounds more. 

Introduction or the French Merino. 

When the American Merino started on his second and rapid 
march of improvement, he soon found a new foreign competitor 
for public favor in the field. 

Mr. D. C. Collins's importation of French Merinos in 1840, has 
already been alluded to in the extracts I have published from 
Mr. Taintor's letter. These sheep found a warm admirer and 
advocate in Anthony Benezet Allen, the very able editor of the 
American Agriculturist, and they were consequently brought 
rapidly into public notice. Mr. Allen attended Mr. Collins' 
shearing in 1843. He considered the wool quite equal to the 
best of that of Spain. It opened with a brilliant creamy color 
on a rich, soft, pink skin, which was excessively loose and corru- 
rugated. The sheep were of fine form, he thought of excellent 
constitution, and from one-tenth to one-fifth larger in carcass than 
American Merinos. " Grandee," the choicest imported ram.f had, 
at three years old in France, sheared 14 lbs. unwashed wool. In 

1842 his unwashed fleece weighed 12| pounds. He was 3 feet 8^ 
inches long " from the setting on of the horns to the end of the 
rump," and weighed in fair condition about 150 pounds. Mr. 
Allen found the average weight of the ewes' unwashed fleeces in 

1 843 to be 6 lbs. 9 ozs. 

Mr. Taintor's importations commenced in 1846. Mr. Allen has 
kindly furnished me with a list of those also made by other per- 
sons, but on second thought I have concluded not to give it. To 
do so without discrimination would be placing honorable persons 
in an unpleasant association, and I do not feel called upon, with- 

* It has become so customary not to wash the best stock rams, and to treat them as above 
mentioned, that I am compelled to give their weight of fleeces under such circumstances. 

t He was used as a sire ram at Rambouillet, and Mr. Collins was obliged to wait until he 
was thus used the year that he brought him out. 



57 

out greater necessity, to specify individual frauds which have 
mostly worked their own cure. 

Mr. Taintor, on the point of leaving home, referred me for 
particulars concerning his imported sheep, to a large proprietor 
of them, Mr. John D. Patterson, of Westfield, N. Y. That gen- 
tleman has furnished me the following statements : 

"Your second inquiry calls for the characteristics of these imported 
sheep, weight of single year's fleeces, &c, &c. It would be difficult to 
give the characteristics of these various importations of sheep, as there 
has been so great a difference in them, they having been of all kinds 
and qualities, from good to very inferior. Some of them have been of 
large size, were well proportioned, being short in the leg, broad in the 
chest, had strong hardy constitutions, were easily kept, and always in 
good condition. With ordinary care and on ordinary feed, they sheared 
heavy fleeces, and their wool was even and of good quality, while others 
of them, and by far the greatest number, were the opposite of these in 
all the different qualities mentioned, some having been the discarded and 
refused sheep of good flocks, and others were grade sheep from flocks 
having no reputation as being of strictly pure blood ; but these kinds 
of sheep were bought up by speculators at low prices, brought to this 
country and sold on the reputation and credit of the better class of 
French sheep that had been previously imported. They were long in the 
leg and long in the neck ; were slab-sided, thin-visaged, gaunt, thin 
through the shoulders, narrow in the chest ; their constitutions so puny 
and delicate that it was impossible to keep them in fair condition even 
with the best possible care and attention ; their fleeces were light, their 
wool uneven in quality, some being quite too fine for profit (because too 
light), while others would be exceedingly coarse and filled with jar. In 
France, as in this country, there are all descriptions and grades of sheep, 
and it does not follow, as is supposed by many, that all that have been 
imported from there are of the same kind and quality, even if called by 
the same name. ****** 

" In answer to your inquiry as to the weight of fleece of the French 
sheep and their live weight, I can only reply by giving the result of 
my own flock. My French rams have generally sheared from 18 to 24 
pounds of an even year's growth, and unwashed, but some of them, with 
high keeping and light use, have sheared more, and my yearling rams 
have generally sheared from 15 to 22 pounds each. My breeding and 
yearling ewes have never averaged as low as 15 pounds each, unwashed, 
taking the entire flock. Some of them have sheared over 20 pounds 
each, but these were exceptions, being large and in high condition. 

The live weight of any animal of course depends very much upon its 
condition. My yearling ewes usually range from 90 to 130 pounds each, 
and the grown ewes from 130 to HO pounds each, and I have had some 
that weighed over 200 pounds each ; but these would be above the 
average size and in high flesh. My yearling rams usually weigh from 
120 to 180 pounds each, and my grown rams from 180 to 250 pounds 
each — some of them have weighed over 300 pounds each, but these 
were unusually large and in high flesh and in full fleece. I have had 
ram lambs weigh 120 pounds at seven months old, but they were more 
thrifty, fleshy and larger than usual at that age. 

"As you request the height from the top of the shoulder to the 
ground, I have measured some of those of medium height, and find that 



58 

yearling ewes run from 26 to 28 inches, the grown ewes from 28 to 30 
inches, the yearling rams from 28 to 32 inches, and the grown rams from 
30 to 34 inches. You also inquire the color of the great body of French 
sheep, externally ; what color the wool is when opened on the sheep, 
whether the oil in the wool is white or yellow, and if they exhibit much 
gum ? 

" When running out and exposed to the storms, they are, as a whole, 
light-colored when compared with the Spanish Merinos, for the reason 
that they have much less yolk or gum in their fleeces, besides their oil 
or yolk is more of a soap-like substance, and separates from their wool 
60 readily that the rains will wash their surface comparatively clean, 
leaving them light-colored, while the oil or gum of the Spanish Merino 
is so adhesive and sticky it is difficult and, in many of them, impossible 
to wash it out of their wool by ordinary brook-washing ; and as it is 
the yolk or oily matter contained in the fleece, causing the dust and 
other matter to adhere to it, which gives the external color, the Spanish 
Merinos are generally darker on the surface than the French, and it is 
this excess of oil in the Spanish Merino which causes their fleeces to 
lose so large a percentage in weight when cleansed for manufacturers' 
use Experiments made with the two kinds of wool, by reliable and 
experienced manufacturers, have proved that as much cloth can be made 
of the same number of pounds of unwashed French Merino wool as can 
be made of an equal number of pounds of brook-icashed Spanish Merino 
wool in the condition it is usually sold. 

" In answer to your inquiry as to the color of the wool of the French 
sheep when opened on the back, and if their oil is white or yellow, I 
would say their wool is generally of a cream color, or has a yellowish 
cast, and the oil or yolk in their fleece is a similar color ; still, when 
washed their wool is of a pure white. 

The wool of some of the French sheep is naturally quite white when 
opened on the body, without being washed, but I have invariably found 
those having the whitish wool (when alike in other respects) were the 
lightest shearers."* 

The fallowing statement of B. L. Gage, of De Ruyter, N. Y., 
(made in behalf of his father and himself,) contains interesting 
details in respect to the management of these sheep, by persons 
whose skill and success in that particular have not been excelled : 

"We bred French sheep from September, 1852, till February, 1861. 
Our first purchase was of John A. Taintor, of Hartford, Conn. We 
have since bought of John D. Patterson, of Westfield, Chautauqua Co., 
N. Y., and F. M. Rotch, Morris, Otsego Co., N. Y. About forty is the 
most we had at any one time. 

"The average weight of the ewes' fleeces was 10 lbs 8 ozs., well 
washed. 

" In addition to hay in winter, we fed them about a pint of a mixture 
of grain and roots each per day. 

" We also fed a small amount of grain in summer to attract them to 
the barn at night for their safety from dogs. 

" They were always kept housed in winter except on clear days, when 
they were allowed to go out or in at will. They were also allowed to 
go into the shed at will in summer. 

* This letter is dated January 11, 1862. 



59 

" The French Merinos always afforded us good returns in wool and 
lambs. The ewes were good nurses, often bearing twins. Our full 
grown rams weighed from 180 to 225 pounds ; the ewes from 125 to 
170 pounds. 

"We sold our entire flock of French Merinos and crosses to J. D. 
Patterson, Esq., last winter. 

"We have now commenced a flock of pure blood Spanish Merinos of 
the Atwood and Hammond stock, and have about fifty in all. 

" With the experience we have in both breeds, it is our impression 
that the Spanish are the most profitable for all classes of wool growers, 
and will keep in better condition on short keep and rough usage ; but it 
always paid us better to keep well than poorly. Part of our Spanish 
ewes sheared last spring 6 lbs. washed, and a part 8 lbs. 4 ozs. unwashed. 
I think by good breeding and care a few generations, we can increase 
the heft very much. I enclose two samples of wool from two of the 
ewes."* 

I subsequently inquired of tbese gentlemen whether their 
French sheep were driven to the barns at night and in rain 
storms in summer, or if they went there without driving. Their 
reply was, that they sometimes drove them in during cold rain 
storms in the fall, but otherwise not ; that, however, the sheep 
generally went under shelter at all times when wetted by rain ; 
that in fair nights they " seemed to prefer sleeping out in the 
yards." The means used to guard them against dogs brought 
them also to sleep on the dry straw of the barn yard instead of 
the damp sod of the pasture. 

Introduction of the Silesian Merino. 

Still another Richmond was to appear in the field of competi- 
tion — the exquisitely wooled Silesian Merino. The following 
account of its introduction and characteristics is contained in a 
letter to me from the principal importer of the variety, William 
Chamberlain, Esq., of Red Hook, New York. He writes : 

"Your favor dated 24th ult. is received, and it gives me pleasure to 
furnish the required information in regard to my flock of Silesian sheep, 
with full liberty to make such use of the facts as you please. 

" 1st. I have made importations for myself and George Campbell of 
Silesian sheep, as follows : 

In the year 1851, say , 40 ewes and 15 bucks. 

do 1853, do 2T do 4 do 

do 1854, do Ill do 13 do 

do 1856, do 34 do 2 do 

212 do 34 do 

"In 1854 I visited Silesia and made the purchases myself. 

* This letter is dated January 2, 1862. 



60 

"2d. The sheep were bred by Louis Fischer, of Wirchenblatt, Silesia, 
except a few which were bred by his near neighhor, Baron Weidebach, 
who used Fischer's breeders. 

" 3d. Their origin is Spain. In 1811 Ferdinand Fischer, the father of 
Louis Fischer, the present owner of the flock, visited Spain himself and 
purchased one hundred of the best ewes he could find of the Infantado 
flocks, and four bucks from the Nigretti flock, and took them home with 
him to Silesia, and up to the present day they have not been crossed 
with any other flocks or blood, but they have been crossed within the 
families. The mode pursued is to number every sheep and give the 
same number to all her increase ; an exact record is kept in books, and 
thus Mr. Fischer is enabled to give the pedigree of every sheep he owns, 
running back to 1811, which is positive proof of their entire purity of 
blood. The sheep are perhaps not as large as they would be if a little 
other blood were infused ; but Mr. F. claims that entire purity of blood 
is indispensably necessary to insure uniformity of improvement when 
crossed on ordinary wool growers' flocks ; and such is the general opin- 
ion of wool growers in Germany, Poland and Russia, which enables Mr. 
Fischer to sell at high prices as many bucks and ewes as he can spare, 
and as he and his father have enjoyed this reputation for so many years, 
I am fully of opinion that he is right. From these facts you will observe 
that my sheep are pure Spanish. 

" 4th. Medium aged ewes shear from 8 to 11 pounds ; bucks from 12 
to 16 pounds ; but in regard to ewes, it must be borne in mind that they 
drop their lambs from November to February, which lightens the clip 
somewhat. 1 do not wash my sheep. 

" 5th. I have sold my clip from 30 to 45 cents, according to the market. 

" 6th. We have measured the wool on quite a number of sheep, and 
find it from one and a half to two inches long, say eight months' growth, 
but I have no means of knowing what it would be at twelve months' 
growth. 

" 7th. Their external color is dark. The wool has oil but no gum 
whatever, they having been bred so as to make them entirely free from 
gum — German manufacturers always insisting on large deductions in 
the price of wool where gum is found. 

"8th. As above stated, the Silesians have oil, but no gum like what 
are sold for Spanish and French, and the oil is white and free ; the wool 
does not stick together. 

" 9th. We have weighed five ewes. Three dropped their lambs last 
month; the other two have not yet come in. Their weights are 115, 
140, 130, 115 and 127 pounds ; three bucks weighing severally 145, 158, 
155 pounds ; one yearling buck weighing 130 pounds ; but this would 
be more than an average weight of my flock when young and very old 
sheep were brought into the average. My sheep are only in fair condi- 
tion, as I feed no grain. They have beets, which I consider very good 
for milk, but not so good for flesh as grain. 

" 10th and 11th. For the first time my shepherd has measured some 
sheep : ewes from 24 to 28 inches high, fore-leg 11 to 12 inches ; bucks, 
27 to 28 inches high, foreleg 12 to 13£ inches. 

" 12th. We find the Silesians hardy, much more so than a small flock 
of coarse mutton sheep that I keep and treat quite as well as I do the \ 
Silesians. 

" 13th. They are first rate breeders and nurses. 

" Some of these facts I have given on the statement of my shepherd, 
Carl Hyne, who was one of Mr. Fischer's, shepherds, and oame home 



61 

■with the sheep I purchased in 1854, and a man whose honor and integ- 
rity I can fully indorse. 

" My sheep do not deteriorate in this country, but the wool rather grows 
finer without any reduction in the weight of fleece."* 

In a subsequent letter Mr. Chamberlain writes : 

" Carl has weighed a few more of our Silesian sheep, and their weights 
are as follows : Four full aged ewes, respectively, 120, 125, 10*1, 10T 
pounds ; two ewe lambs, 90, 87 pounds ; two two-year old bucks, 124 
122 pounds ; one three-fourths blood, 143 pounds. 

" I attended to the weighing and selection myself, and am of opinion 
that our ewes from three to eight years old average fully 115 pounds, say 
before dropping their lambs. Our younger sheep do not weigh as much. 
Silesians do not get their full size till four years of a^e, and after eight 
or nine years they are not as heavy. * * * Mr. Fischer's sheep are 
large, say larger than any flock of Vermont Merinos that I have seen. 
* * * I have the lambs come from November to March, because 
Carl says it is the best way, and I let him do as he pleases. * * * 
The ewes do not give quite as much wool, but I think the lambs make 
stronger sheep, as they get a good start the first summer." 

Comparative Profitableness of Varieties. 

Your President has assigned to me a delicate task under this 
head ; but I shall advance upon it fearlessly, because I know that 
the opinions of one person, if erroneous, will weigh but little and 
soon be corrected. 

"With an experience with all the preceding national varieties, 
except the Prussian or Silesian Merino, quite sufficient to satisfy 
myse/f in regard to their respective qualities, I have preferred to 
go for testimony to others — to the principal importers and the 
most deeply interested owners and advocates of each variety — 
to those who, by common consent, have the choicest animals of 
each ever introduced into or bred in our country. 

It is true this affords a view only of the best animals, but these 
are the ones which offer the most instructive examples, and there 
is no difficulty in judging from them downwards. 

The American (Spanish) and Saxon varieties were first intro- 
duced in large numbers, and will therefore be first compared. 

There was no time after 1835 when the prime American Merino 
did not exceed the prime Saxon Merino by at least one and a 
half pounds in the weight of fleece. The table of prices shows 
that before and subsequently to that period, the average price of 
Saxon wool was not more than 10 cents highest per pound. 

* This letter is dated January 6, 1862. Mr. Chamberlain's residence is considerably nearer 
to Barry town than to Red Hook. 



62 

Between 1831 and 1837, when Saxon wool was most remune- 
rative, its average prices were from about 65 to 70 cents per 
pound. If we estimate the Saxon fleece at three pounds, and the 
American fleece at four and a half pounds, when the first was worth 
in the market $2.10, the latter was worth $2.70. 

The Saxon was a smaller consumer than its rival, because a 
smaller sheep. The production of flesh and other animal tissues 
from food, is a process regulated by physiological laws which 
work substantially alike where breed, habits and other circum- 
stances are alike. The Merino consumes about one-thirtieth of 
its own weight daily of good hay in winter, and an equivalent of 
green food in summer. The Saxon sheep of 1840, then, con- 
sumed about two and a half pounds of hay daily, and the Amer- 
ican about three pounds — a difference of 75 pounds in favor of 
the former during the 150 days of a New York winter. Hay 
then cost about $5 a ton at the barn, and pasturage a cent a week 
for a sheep of either variety through the remaining 225 days of 
the 3 r ear, making the cost of keeping an American Merino less 
than 20 cents most a year. 

The Saxon required much more care and attention and better 
winter shelter. In ordinary hands it reared 20 per centum less 
of good lambs.* Finally the American Merino fatted as easily 
as the Saxon, made as good mutton, and produced more of it. 

In the interior and wool-growing regions proper of New York, 
hay for the last few years has usually averaged about $6 a ton in 
value at the barn, and pasture costs through the season about 
two cents a head per week for sheep. Were the prices of both 
doubled, it is obvious that the American Merino would continue 
vastly the most profitable sheep, particularly if the increase in 
its fleece since 1840 is taken into account. 

The French Merino spread with great rapidity throughout the 
Northern States, and is disappearing as rapidly. Our farmers 
have obtained the impression that it produces less wool in pro- 
portion to size and consumption, than the American Merino, wool 
of less value, and that it is essentially a weaker and less hardy 
animal. 

Many of the imported sheep of this variety, as well as their 

* I say "good lambs," because many of the small and feeble lambs of the Saxon sheep 
perished during their first winter when eight or nine months old. 



63 

descendants, did, undeniably, produce very light fleeces in pro- 
portion to carcass. I have seen them repeatedly beaten, fleece 
for fleece, by little compact American Merinos of scarcely half 
their size. 

It is true also of the best of them that their fleeces are much 
lighter in proportion to mere bulk (that is when equal force is 
applied to compress the fleece in the wool press*), than those of 
the American variety. If both are unwashed, the American 
fleece has far most yolk. If washed equally well, the American 
fleece still retains far more of that substance. Yolk is mainly 
an animal soap, the constituents of which will presently be given, 
but it contains a trace of insoluble fatty matter. Whether from 
a greater proportion of the last, or for some other cause, the yolk 
of the American sheep is less readily liberated — it requires more 
previous soaking — and if the sheep are put dry into cold brook 
water, and not kept in over long — the fashionable mode of wash- 
ing in our country — the French Merino's wool is nearly as free 
from this substance before it goes in, as that of a class of Ameri- 
can Merinos is when they come out ; and according to my obser- 
vation, the yolk reappears twice as rapidly in the American fleece 
after washing. Indeed this must be true, for where there is 
double or treble secretion during the year, the process of secre- 
tion must go on with double or treble rapidity ; consequently, if 
two or three weeks are allowed to intervene, as usual, between 
washing and shearing, and if the weather be warm, the American 
fleece again becomes lubricated and " weighted " with yolk, while 
the French fleece remains almost as dry as cotton. 

In one respect, certainly the American fleece derives a purely 
legitimate advantage from these facts. With the rapid return of 
the yolk comes the rapid return of lustre and the characteristic 
silkiness of handling so much prized by buyers. 

I am inclined to believe that wholly independently of all extra- 
neous matter, the actual fibre of the American wool, if we could 
weigh exactly equal quantities of each, would be found heaviest. 
The bones, muscles, skin and other animal tissues of a small ani- 
mal, even of the same species, are less porous and, to use the 
familiar term, finer-grained than those of animals fifty per cent, 
larger. Wool and hair closely assimilate in their organic con- 

* See Appendix D. 



64 

stituents with these substances.* I know no reason, therefore, 
why an analogous decrease of density should not extend to the 
wool and hair of the larger animal. 

But without taking such refinements into the account, and to 
sum up the matter, the American far excels the French Merino in 
the combined production of wool and yolk) and as yolk is 
allowed to be a marketable commodity, the mass of our farmers 
prefer the sheep which produces it in greatest abundance. But 
in the production of pure wool, my own opinion is that the heavi- 
est fleeced animals of the two varieties do not materially differ — 
not more perhaps than is inevitable, other things being equal — 
by reason of that law of matter which gives small spherical 
bodies more surface in proportion to weight and diameter than 
larger ones. The carcass of a sheep has sufficient sphericity to 
make this law applicable to it. A better idea of its practical 
effects will be obtained from an examination of the following 
table prepared in relation to round shot : 



•iameter in 


Weight in 


Surfaces in 


Inches of surface to 


inches. 


pounds. 


inches. 


one pound weight. 


2 


.. 1,092 


.... 12.56636 


..,. 11.50 


3 „,__._ 


.. 3,685 


.... 28,27431 


7.69 


4 


.. 8,736 


.... 50.26544 


5.75 


5 


.. 17,063 


.... 78.53975.... 


4.60 


6 


.. 29,484 


.... 113.09724 


3.83 


7 


._ 46,820 


.... 153.93791 


3.28 


8 _ 


.. 69,889 


.... 201.06176 


2.87 



It will be observed that while the disparity in proportionable 
surface, between the extremes given, is enormous, that it dimin- 
ishes as between larger spheres. But notwithstanding this, all 
must see that between spheroidal bodies differing fifty per centum 
in size and weight (equivalent to the difference between the 
French and American Merino), the greater proportionable sur- 
face of the smaller body must be sufficient to make a material 
difference in its favor if that surface is to be covered with wool 
of equal thickness and length. To express the result more prac- 

* Analyses made by Liebig, Johnston, Scherer, Playfair, Boeckman and Mulder, prove that 
the organic part of wool, hair, skin, nails, horns, feathers, lean meat, blood, etc., are very 
nearly the same. The organic part of wool, according to Johnston, consists of carbon 50.65; 
hydrogen, 7.03; nitrogen, 17.71; oxygen and sulphur, 24.61. The inorganic constituents are 
small. When burned it leaves but 2.0 per cent, of ash. (See Liebig's Agricultural Chem- 
istry, Appendix; and Johnston's Agricultural Chemistry, Lecture XVIII.) 



65 

tically, the American Merino has more square inches of surface, 
in proportion to its size, for wool to grow on, than has the larger 
French Merino. And the general deduction is, the smaller the 
sheep the larger the proportionable surface. 

The popular impression, that American wool is finer and better 
than French wool, is, in my judgment, based on an unequal and 
unfair mode of comparison. The best American wool is unques- 
tionably finer, evener, softer, more glossy and more " stylish " 
than any French wool brought into our country. I have not a 
doubt either that it is denser in its substance and stronger in 
proportion to its diameter. My prize ram which I offered to show 
against Mr. Collins' imported " Grandee,"* not only excelled, but, 
in sportsmen's phrase, distanced the latter in fineness, trueness 
and soundness of wool.f Granting frankly that the former was 
an animal of decidedly exceptional qualities, I feel authorized to 
say that Grandee would have passed for a coarsish-fleeced ani- 
mal in any really fine full blood American Merino flock of that 
day. And I believe that no one pretends that the modern 
importations of French sheep exhibit any improvement on Mr. 
Collins' in respect to quality of wool. 

But the really good sheep of the later French importations 
were selected in France for a specific object — for the purpose of 
attaining the greatest amount of wool of a fair medium grade 
of fineness. To make the comparison even, we must select 
American Merinos which have been bred and pampered for the 
same object — the production of the heaviest fleece. And it is 

* This offer was made in 1844, extending to a ram and a pen of ewes (Mr. C. to name amount 
sweepstakes), in consequence of the offensive and purely unprovoked attacks made for months 
in succession on our American Merinos by an able public writer, who, at the same time, warmly 
championed the French sheep. Now that Mr. Collins is dead, I feel bound to say that I have 
no idea he countenanced those attacks. Indeed, I believe that he subsequently said as much 
to me. But engaged, perhaps, in his ocean-steamer plans, and in his very large business 
transactions, he probably gave but little attention to the subject. At the time I thought his 
suffering these attacks so long to appear without public or private disclaimer, authorized any 
owner of American Merinos to make the above challenge. He did not accept it, and the sheep 
sent to meet his were easily victorious over all other competitors at the State Fair. 

f The diameter and trueness of their wool were tested with an admirable compound Cheva- 
lier microscope, by Ebenezer Emmons, M. D., one of the State Geologists, and that one having 
the agricultural survey of the State under his supervision. His skill and accuracy in such 
quasi scientific manipulations will be questioned by no well informed gentleman. See his 
original statements in American Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, 1845, and also in Sheep 
Husbandry in the South, p. 135, and a reply containing further explanations, in American 
Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, 1846, p. 290. The diameter of "Grandee's" wool was 
more than double that of "Premium's," while a single fibre of the former supported 84.6 
grains, and " Premium"s " wool broke with 57.1 grains. 



my opinion that in these classes the French wool is at least as 
good as the American. 

The only really weak point of the best French Merino as a 
pure wool producing animal, is the want of that hardiness which 
adapts it to our changeable climate and to our systems of hus- 
bandry. In this particular it is to the American Merino what 
the great pampered Short-Horn of England is to the little, hardy, 
black cattle of the Scotch highlands — what the high-fed carriage 
horse, sixteen hands high, groomed and attended in a wainscoted 
stable, is to the Sheltie that feeds among the moors and mosses, 
and defies the tempests of the Orkneys. The French sheep has 
not only been highly kept and housed from storm and rain and 
dew for generations, but it has been bred away from the normal 
type of its race. The Dishley sheep of Mr. Bakewell are not a 
more artificial variety, and all highly artificial varieties become 
comparatively delicate in constitution. 

The following frank and well considered opinions on this sub- 
ject are from the pen of Col. F. M. Rotch, of Morris, Otsego Co., 
N. Y., who imported some of these sheep in conjunction with Mr. 
Taintor in 1851, and who, a few years since, had a most admirable 
flock of them. He writes me : 

* * * * « France I visited two or three times with a view to 
importing' Merinos, and sent out to Mr. Taintor quite a number of the 
French variety. 

" The French Merinos of the first class are certainly superb sheep, 
but they vary there as they do here — a few flocks, say half a dozen, 
being very superior, and then comes a number of mediocre flocks where 
neither the care nor expense nor knowledge are bestowed, and where 
the sheep more closely resemble the old Spanish type. You ask me my 
opinion of the French, as suited to our rough farming. I don't think 
them at all fitted to it. Though a vigorous, good-constitutioned and 
hardy sheep, they are accustomed to too much care and watchfulness in 
their native land to be able to endure the rough-and-tumble style of 
much of our fanning. The north side of a barn and the lee of a rail 
fence for animals that are housed every night in the year at home, is too 
sudden and great a change. With proper care they are able to endure 
even our vicissitudes of climate, and thrive and grow fat here as in 
France ; but like all improved breeds of domestic animals, it is folly to 
expect them to do well without care or feeding. Any animal brought 
from a state of high cultivation and a mild temperature, to a colder cli- 
mate and poorer soil, will deteriorate unless extra pains are taken to 
supply the loss of care and counteract the change of food. During the 
dozen years I kept French Merinos, I gave them much the same care 
they had in their own country, and found them to thrive and breed and 
weigh and shear as they did there, almost. The long winter and the 
necessity of feeding drj 7 food so many months, told upon them somewhat. 
They are good breeders and nurses, often having twins and rearing them 



el 

well. As a cross upon our usual type of Merino, I consider them very- 
valuable, but quite unfit for the general use as a stock sheep* of our 
farmers at present. With a better husbandry and improved shepherd- 
ing, they may one of these days take their place among us as a breed, 
but now their crosses are what we must look to. I have no data that I 
' can lay my hand upon of weights of fleece or carcass, nor of measure- 
ments. I sold my whole flock some six years ago to J. D. Patterson, of 
Westfield, who has now no doubt the finest sheep of this breed in the 
country."} 

It will be observed that there is a hint of the want of adapta- 
tion in these sheep to our climate and common s} 7 stems of hus- 
bandry in all the preceding communications from the most noted 
breeders of them, except Mr. Patterson, and he would seem to 
make the same admission by implication in a letter which is to 
follow. J It may, therefore, be assumed to be a conceded and 
settled fact. 

Another point seems equally clear, that the inferior sheep of 
the variety are not like inferior American Merinos, still hardy 
and still valuable, but almost utterly worthless. This is a disad- 
vantage which always attends highly artificial varieties and fam- 
ilies. What so weak, worthless and miserable as a bad family 
of Short-Horns or a bad family of Dishley sheep ! 

In giving my opinion of the comparative profitableness of the 
best French and the best American Merinos, I will adopt the 
language of the most noted public advocate of the former, Mr. 
A. B. Allen. He recently wrote to me : 

" The hardy American Merino, properly selected, (mind that, 
properly selected,') is undoubtedly best for the ordinary sheep 
master, and most profitable as a wool producer." 

This by no means, however, establishes the fact that the French 

Merino is without high value in our country. Col Rotch's 

remarks in favor of a cross between that and the American 

Merino have been noted. Mr. Patterson, in answer to an inquiry 

on that subject, writes to me : 

" I have tried the cross between the French and Spanish [American] 
Merinos, and succeeded beyond my expectations. Indeed, as a wool- 
growing sheep in the hands of most farmers, and to be kept as sheep 
are generally kept throughout the country, I have never seen a stock 
which I thought as profitable, both for wool-grower and manufacturer. 

* By stock gheep I mean the main body of a flock. 

| This letter was dated January 13; 1862. 

| Perhaps I should hardly use the word "admission," for Mr. E. L. Gage, of De Ruyter, 
informs me that Mr. Patterson makes no secret of such views. If he did not state them 
explicitly to me, it was because he was not questioned. 



68 

* * * * I have bred them since 1848, and for the last ten years I 
have had more of this kind than all others, although I have always kept 
a flock of pure Spanish, and have always put French rams to my French 
ewes, making my cross by putting French rams to my Spanish ewes, 
not that I think that principle of breeding the best, but it costs much 
less money to do it. And while this cross with me has always been a 
very profitable wool-growing sheep, I can also say I have seen crosses 
from these long-legged, slab-sided, narrow-chested French rams as 
miserable and worthless as can be imagined." 

My own experiments in this cross, candor requires me to say, 
have been less successful. Some of them were made with a ram 
bred by Col. Rotch and pure blood American Merino ewes ; some 
were purchased of gentlemen who started with such ewes and 
bred them to first rate French rams obtained of Messrs. Taintor 
and Patterson ; and some were got by pure American rams on high 
grade French and American ewes (averaging say fifteen-sixteenths 
or more French, and the remainder American Merino blood.) 
From this last cross I expected much. The ewes were compact 
and noble-looking animals. The produce was obviously better 
than the get of French rams on the same ewes, but after watching 
it for two years, I have recently come rather reluctantly to the 
conclusion that in this climate even these grades are not intrin- 
sically as valuable as pure American Merinos. 

But the Merino ram which got them, though apparently pre- 
senting the most admirable combination of points for such a 
cross,* has hot proved himself a superior sire with other ewes ; 
and I do not therefore regard this experiment as conclusive. 

Some well-managed experiments of both these kinds have been 
tried by the Messrs. Baker, of Lafayette, and the Messrs. Clapp, 
of Pompey, New York. They bred towards the French until 
they obtained about fifteen-sixteenths of that blood, and now find 
the cross best the other way. One of the last of these crosses 
now appears to promise extremely well.f 

While the breeder of pure blood American Merinos has no occa- 
sion, in my judgment, to change them by a cross with any other 
variety, I at the same time believe that the owner of the mixed 
French and American varieties has no occasion to despair of 

* He weighed about 140 lbs., was compact and symmetrical, and his fleece weighed 14 lbs. 
washed. He was a very dark, yolky sheep. He was bred in Vermont; and though undoubt- 
edly full blood, probably did not spring from ancestors as good as himself, or in other words, 
he was an "accidental" animal. 

\ Particularly the get of a choice old ram known as the " Lucius Kobinson" ram, one of the 
best sire rams ever got by the " Old Robinson" ram. 



obtaining, at least, a most excellent and valuable sub-variety, if 
his crosses are judiciously made. There is a " debateable land" 
between the mutton and wool-producing regions where these 
crossed sheep, or where the full blood French sheep may prove 
the most profitable variety. Even the latter demand no more feed 
or care than the high-bred mutton varieties ; they are probably 
about as good nurses ; and they will yield a large quantity of 
meat, and meat of a quality which always commands a ready 
sale in our markets. Their annual product of wool would be far 
more valuable than that of any mutton variety. Their want of 
early maturity, as I shall presently show, would be no objection 
to them in such situations. 

In Prance, where both mutton and forage are worth twice as 
much as in our country, the French Merino holds its ground 
against the best long and middle-wooled sheep brought from 
England. 

It has another valuable place to fill, namely : on farms where 
surplus capital keeps up high systems of husbandry, is lavish 
in erecting structures, and employs an abundance of labor. 
These establishments of the wealthy are constantly increasing in 
our country — especially in the vicinity of cities and villages. In 
such situations the stately French sheep ought to be and will be, 
if fairly tried, a favorite and a profitable animal. 

It is a misfortune to us as a farming people, that growing up' 
without the local traditions and prejudices so common in older 
nations, we have no dams and bulkheads to arrest the currents 
of fashion — and if a fashion becomes established by the accept- 
ance of a majority, it must sweep from the centre to the circum- 
ference, embracing all places and persons. Are the agricultural 
interests of a majority necessarily those of the whole ? Are the 
same cattle and crops equally adapted to all soils and climates 
and markets ? Must every change in our agriculture assume the 
form of a mania, and sacrifice everything that does not jump with 
its humor ? It is time for us to abandon such follies. 

American and Silesian Merino. 
Between the Silesian sheep and the preceding varieties, it does 
not appear to me to be necessary to institute any extended com- 
parison. Like the American Merino, it is the Spanish sheep ma- 
terially improved, but not, like the French and Saxon sheep, bred 
away widely from the characteristic features of the orignal race. 



70 

It is simply an exquisitely high bred Spanish sheep, of pure and 
undoubted descent, bred for fifty years to a particular model, by 
two breeders, a father and son. Its fleece is decidedly superior 
in quality to that of any Merino, except the Saxon, ever brought 
into or bred in our country, The weight of that fleece has been 
stated by Mr. Chamberlain. Wherever it is most profitable to 
grow really fine wool, this variety ought to stand unrivaled. And 
I cannot entertain a doubt that there will always be sufficient 
demand in the United States for such wool, to make large flocks 
of these Silesian sheep profitable. If our broadcloth manufac- 
tures should revive, as it is to be hoped they will, it will add 
immensely to the call for this class of wool. 

Where it is desirable to make crosses between Merinos and 
coarse breeds, or to add to the fineness and evenness of coarse 
families of Merinos, these sheep would seem well fitted to the 
object. 

Since writing the above, I have examined Mr. Chamberlain's 
imported flock and their descendants, in his possession. My im- 
pressions of the admirable quality and uniformity of their fleeces 
is fully confirmed. Most of the lambs were dropped when I saw 
them (Feb. 10th,) and the ewes appear to be excellent nurses. 
Their carcasses are round, and of good shape. Some of them 
are taller in proportion to weight than I consider desirable — 
because the German breeders pay less attention to this point — 
but this tendency could be promptly changed without going out 
of the flock for rams. I know not why there is so prevalent an 
idea that they are small sheep. They are at least as large as the 
ordinary American Merino. They are entirely free from gum 
within the wool, but are exceedingly yolky and dark colored. 
They are housed in the winter and at night throughout the sum- 
mer, to protect them from dogs and to preserve their dark color. 
They are managed with great skill by the shepherd, and under 
admirable arrangements, but are not pampered in respect to feed. 

Crossing. 

Crossing or intermixing different breeds, or different varieties 
of the same breed, has been dabbled in by everybody. 

The French attempted the first, and proclaimed to the world 
that the produce of the fourth cross between the Merino and 
coarse sheep (breeding towards the Merino) was as good a wool- 



m 

bearing sheep, and as valuable for breeding purposes, as the full 
blood Merino.* 

Dr. Parry, of England, tried two or three crosses, and with the 
bustling officiousness and absurd assurance of a new beginner, 
filled the agricultural publications of England with statements 
that he had already surpassed the pure Merino wool in quality, 
and had actually injured the produce of his grade ewes (between 
Merino and Ryeland) in fineness, by " one dip" too much "with 
the Spaniard !" f 

Dr. Browne, in his learned " Trtchologia Mammalium," states 
that I advised the crossing of the South Down and Merino, and 
wishes to hear " from myself" why I did so, after I had con- 
demned the cross between the Leicester and Merino as an " un- 
qualified absurdity." Having never before answered this ques- 
tion publicly, I will do so now. I advised it as I would advise 
the Finlander in a season of famine to continue his practice of 
mixing pulverized wood or straw with meal, if he found it neces- 
sary " to fill out his stomach"; but I should not tell him that I 
thought the pulverized wood and meal constituted a mixture 
better than all meal, or as good, provided both were equally 
accessible. Where there is a deficiency of capital to stock wool 
growing farms with pure Merino sheep, or where the latter can 
not be obtained rapidly enough, it is better to cross coarse ewes 
with Merino rams, than to leave the land idle. In the progress 
of time the produce will become excellent and profitable sheep ; 
but to suppose that the produce of the fourth or of the twentieth 
cross will equal pure and properly bred Merinos, is what no 
breeder of ripe experience in the premises ever dreamed of. Base 
blood runs out rapidly by arithmetical calculation ; but practi- 
cally it stays in, and is ever and anon cropping out, by exhibiting 
the old base characteristics, in a way that sets all " calculation" 

* Mr. Livingston says : " Having mentioned Dr. Parry's concurrence with the French agri- 
culturists in the opinion that the breed is completely changed in the fourth generation, I should 
add," &c. (Essay, p. 133.) * * * " The French agriculturists say that however 
coarse the fleece of the parent ewe may have been, the progeny in the fourth generation will 
not show it." (Page 133.) * * * " It is now so well established as not even to 

admit of the smallest doubt, that a Merino in the fourth generation, from even the worst 
wooled ewes, is in every respect equal to the stock of the sire. No difference is now made 
in Europe in the choice of a ram, whether he is a full blood or Jif teen-sixteenths." (Page 
131.) 

If this last assertion were known to be true in respect to the breeding of the French Merino, 
it would solve some now very puzzling problems in regard to that variety. 

t See his letter, published in papers of Bath Agricultural Society, Vol. X. 



72 

at defiance. The observing Germans have a very good way of 
terming all, even the highest bred mongrels, simply " improved 
half-blood." They found that their original coarse sheep had 
5,500 fibres of wool on a square inch ; grades of the third or 
fourth Merino cross produced about 8,000 ; the twentieth cross 
27,000 ; the perfect pure blood 40 to 48,000.* 

Whether it is proper and expedient to cross between varieties 
of the same breed, in the expectation of forming an intermediate 
variety, and improving on both of the originals, is hardly yet a set- 
tled question. The Spaniards thought not, and carefully guarded 
against any mixtures between their cabanas ; and they bred in- 
and-in for ages. 

The French plunged into the opposite extreme, by selecting 
from and intermixing the blood of all the different cabanas indis- 
criminately — wherever a choice animal could be found. And, 
Mr. Gilbert to the contrary notwithstanding, they never have 
" melted into each other" by forming one closely homogeneous 
variety, or even a group of such varieties. They are of all sizes, 
sorts and descriptions. Col. Rotch's letter can be re-read with 
profit in this connection. 

Mr. Jarvis did not carry this system so far — for he blended 
much fewer cabanas, and it was an aggregation of masses instead 
of mere individuals ; but I have reason to suspect that even in 
this he did not follow his own better judgment, but was influenced 
by the inducements held out by leading manufacturers, who 
wished to obtain a wool resembling the Saxon, f 

In his instance, the guidance of a single intelligent will, for 
upwards of half a century, produced a very considerable degree 
of uniformity in his flock ; but will any one now undertake to say 
that the ultimate result of this long labor was an improvement 
on some of the separate original materials of his flock ? Would 

* Fleichmann's Report. 

■j- Charles Jarvis, Esq., of Weathersfield, Vermont, son of Hon. William Jarvis, writes me, 
(Jan. 14th, 1862:) " He also mentioned there was more gum in the fleeces [of the imported 
sheep] and they had a darker complexion at their introduction here than subsequently, mainly 
owing to father's accommodating the manufacturers by breeding in the contrary direction." 
Here we have the solution of the Escurial cross ; and now for the Saxon : " I have repeatedly 
heard him say his Merino ewes sheared about four pounds till he was persuaded by Mr. Shep- 
herd [Col. James Shepherd, of Northampton, Mass.] the great manufacturer of that day, to 
get some Saxons to cross with, as the finest wool was to be in the most demand in future — 
and as repeatedly heard him end his allusion to the subject by declaring that if he had thrown 
his pocket-book, with the price of the Saxons, into the Connecticut river, as he was crossing 
for the purchase of them, he should be better off." 



73 

any one now prefer his mixed sheep to descendants of the Pau- 
lars, Negrettis, etc., which he chose from the flocks of Spain ? 

Crossing, however, between two or three families, has sometimes 
resulted highly favorably. A considerable majority of the older 
breeding flocks of Vermont and New York are a cross between 
the Paular (Rich) and Infantado (Atwood) sheep. At the period 
that cross commenced, the first had size, form, constitution and 
long, thick wool. The last had fineness, evenness and style of 
wool, and an excess of yolk. Each was strong in the points 
where the other was most deficient ; and experience soon demon- 
strated that the better qualities of both blended harmoniously in 
their offspring. There is no denying that the produce of the 
cross is far superior to either of the original families, as those 
families were when it commenced. They are great favorites with 
the farmers both of Vermont and New York, and are to be found 
in nearly every fine-wool growing county of the latter. 

Mr. P. F. Myrtle and 0. N. Ackerson, of Steuben county, New 
York, have a very superior flock, and Gen. 0. F. Marshall, Julius 
Stickney, and others, of the same county, fine specimens of them, 
descended from the flocks of Tyler Stickney and Erastus and Lu- 
cius Robinson, of Vermont.* I have not at hand any statement 
of their average weight of fleeces, but they rank high in this par- 
ticular. Messrs. Myrtle and Ackerson cut 13 lbs. of well washed 
wool from a ram lamb, the carcass of which weighed 60 lbs. after 
shearing. Gen Marshall cut 9 lbs. of well washed wool from a 
ewe about sixteen months old, which weighed 45 lbs.f It had 
previously, of necessity, received two heavy taggings. These 
sheep have obtained several first state premiums. They cross 
excellently with Merino flocks, previously in that county, owned 
by the Messrs. Baker and others ; and indeed with all other Me- 
rino families with which I have known them to be intermixed. 

The mixed Leonese (Jarvis) and Paular (Rich) families have 
been crossed successfully. " Fortune," one of the best early sire 
rams ever known in New England, was of this cross.* The ewes 

* Mr. Stickney and the Messrs. Robinson started with Paular (Rich) ewes. In 1844, Hon. M. 
W. C. Wright, of Shoreham, Vt., purchased a ram, bred and brought to the New York State 
Fair, by Stephen Atwood. From this ram and one of his own ewes, Erastus Robinson bred the 
" Old Robinson Ram," whose descendants on Robinson and Stickney ewes constitute the crossed 
family mentioned in the text. Mr. Stickney had taken a previous cross with a very superior 
Jarvis ram. Whether his brother-in-law, Robinson, had done so I am not informed. 

f For some valuable and interesting statements in regard to the proportion of wool to meat 
in sheep of different ages, sexes and sizes, see Appendix E. 



u 

and ram with which I offered to meet Mr. Collins' imported 
French sheep in a sweepstakes, were the get of Fortune on Rich 
ewes. 

The late John T. Rich, Esq., (son of the first Vermont proprie- 
tor of the Paulars, and father of the present proprietors of the 
old Rich flock,) took one cross with Mr. Jarvis' family, through 
a ram selected by a most competent judge, f who informs me that 
he was the only one of Mr. Jarvis' entire number which he con- 
sidered suitable for that purpose. He was thicker-fleeced, darker 
and more compact of form than the others, evidently breeding 
back less than the others to the Escurial strain of blood, and his 
get corresponded with himself in this particular ; but my impres- 
sion is, that he did not benefit Mr. Rich's family. In a recent 
examination of that admirable flock, (now owned by John T. 
Rich, the younger, and Virtulan Rich, who live on the old home- 
stead in Shoreham, Vermont,) I found no difficulty whatever in 
selecting out the nearest descendants of the Jarvis ram, and they 
struck me much less favorably than those displaying the charac- 
teristics of the original family. These valuable sheep have kept 
pace with the improvements of later times without any sacrifice 
of their early valuable qualities. 

Hon. M. W. C. Wright, of Shoreham, Vermont, commenced 
breeding with Paular sheep, and crossed them with mixed 
Leonese, and subsequently with Infantado rams, thus uniting the 
three most distinguished families of American Merinos. His 
rams were scattered widely through New York a few years since, 
and they and their descendants have given much satisfaction to 
purchasers who wished to breed a high quality of wool. They 
have obtained many premiums at our fairs. 

The Messrs. Cutting, of Shoreham, Vermont, have produced 
flocks of excellent character by a cross between Infantado sheep 
and an early family of Merinos from Newport, Rhode Island. 
They have bred steadily towards the former. 

Henry Lane, Esq., of Cornwall, Vermont, has bred superior 
sheep of the Paular and Infantado cross, and also pure Infantado 
sheep improved by Mr. Hammond. The same remark applies to 
Loyal C. Remelee, of Shoreham. 

* He was got by a Jarvis ram on a Kich ewe, bred or owned by Mr. Stickney. 
t Hon. M. W. C. Wright. 



75 

On the other hand it has been signally demonstrated that cross- 
ing is much less necessary than has been usually supposed, either 
to avoid in-and-in breeding, or to obtain characteristics not usual 
to the variety. The pure Infantado (Atwood) sheep have in the 
space of eighteen years been completely changed in some of their 
most essential qualities. They have been converted into animals 
as large, low, broad, round, short-necked and symmetrical as any 
other family of Merinos in our country or the world. In short, 
some of them seem to me to have reached the perfection of form 
in a fine-wooled sheep. This change, quite as great as that which 
Mr. Bakewell produced in the Leicester sheep, is principally due 
to the skill and perseverance of Edwin Hammond, of Middlebury, 
Vermont. In 1861 he sheared 193 ewes and 7 rams. Forty- four 
of the first were yearlings, and smallish on account of the drouth 
of the season. Among the seven rams three were smallish year- 
lings and one a smallish two-year old. The whole 200 yielded 
an average of an ounce or two under 10 pounds of unwashed 
wool. Three grown rams yielded together 73 poutids unwashed 
wool. On account of the great scarcity of hay and the compar- 
ative abundance of oats, the sheep were wintered mostly on the 
latter.* This undoubtedly increased the weight of their fleeces, 
but the yield was still a most marvellous one. Mr. Hammond's 
wool is a shade coarser than it was when he commenced his won- 
derful improvements, but it is of a good quality, even, sound and 
less yolky than that of the original sheep. 

Nelson A. Saxton, of Vergennes, Vermont, breeds a small 
and choice flock of the same blood, drawn from Mr. Hammond's 
flock. 

Dr. Ira Spencer, of De Ruyter, New York, has made a vigorous 
commencement in improvements of Infantados drawn from Mr. 
Atwood's flock.f At the last shearing his flock consisted of 40 
ewes three years old and upwards, 10 yearling and 2 grown rams 
and 8 wethers. The average weight of the whole fleeces, washed 
on the back, was a fraction over 7 pounds. He weighed and 
measured the height on shoulder of a few of these, on the 18th 
of January last, and subjoins the weight of their last year's 
fleeces. 

* The entire ewes of all ages received on the average a pound a piece daily, 
t The ram, however, mentioned in following table (recently purchased) is of the Hammond 
family. 



76 

Live weight — Height — Weight of fleece — 

pounds. inches. pounds. 

Ram 132 29 19£ 

Ewe 91 23 7 

Ewe 87 23^ 6£ 

Ewe 107 24 T V 8 

Ewe 89 24 7 

Ewe 98 24 T 2 2 - 7 

The ram's fleece was of eleven months growth and unwashed. 
The sheep ran between two and three weeks between washing and 
shearing. Their winter feed was hay, and each received daily 
half a pint of provender, made up of three parts by measure of 
oats and one part of oil-meal. The ram received more. 

I have ewes of the same blood which have produced from 7 to 
8 lbs. 4 ozs., of well washed wool per head ; but I am unable to 
state any average, their fleeces not having been kept separate 
from those of my other sheep. The ram which I have given 
measurements of in Petri's table, is of this blood. He was bred 
by Mr. Hammond. 

I am informed there are pure Paular sheep in some of the 
western counties of this State which produce very heavy fleeces, 
but I am unable to furnish any detailed facts on the subject.* 

The result of my experience and investigations is embodied in 
the conclusion, that to attain very eminent success I would pre- 
fer to breed from a single family having within it all the proper 
elements of improvement, if it could be done without breeding in- 
and-in too closely. And some persons are quite too easily fright- 
ened on the latter subject. What can be made an evil by being 
carried too far, has, by much talking and writing on the subject, 
been made an indiscriminate bugbear at every stage of its pro- 
gress. It is by no means true that it is either unsafe or improper 
to interbreed animals of any degree of relationship. If it is, 
what has saved the Spanish cabanas for ages? or to take a spe- 
cific instance, (where there is no latitude for conjecturing impos- 
sibilities) what has kept up, nay, increased the size and vigor and 

* I have by no means attempted to name all the choice pure blood flocks., either in this 
State or Vermont. This was not the object of this paper. In the former I have mentioned 
a few of which I happen to have personal knowledge. In Vermont I have only spoken of 
the flocks which (with the exception of Mr. Saxton's) I found time to examine during a three 
days' reconnoisance among the sheep of that State, made within a week of the time of read- 
ing this paper, for the purpose of enabling me to express opinions concerning the present quali- 
ties of the several varieties on the evidence of my own judgment. 



11 

improved the form of Ferdinand and Louis Fischer's flock for 
fifty years, when that flock started with one hundred ewes of one 
family and four rams of another family, and these families have 
since been interbred without the admixture of a drop of fresh 
blood ? Mr. Atwood's sheep present a still stronger example. Ac- 
cording to his statements, his entire flock, now scattered by coloni- 
zation into nearly all the States of the Union, originated from one 
ewe, and neither she nor any of her descendants in his hands was 
interbred with other sheep not descended exclusively from Col. 
Humphreys' flock. Mr. Hammond bought a small number of Mr. 
Atwood's flock in 1844, and he has sinc^e, he assures me, interbred 
solely between the descendants of those identical sheep. 

Is it probable that the Creator, who organized all animals into 
either families, flocks or herds, which strongly incline to remain 
together, and implanted in none of them but man a disinclination 
to incest, at the same time established a physical law which ren- 
dered incestuous connexion per se an element of deterioration and 
final destruction ? Among wild brutes, brothers and sisters must 
constantly pair together. Some kinds of birds are hatched 
in pairs as if for the express purpose of remaining together and 
interbreeding. And the connexion of brothers and sisters is the 
closest possible interbreeding. Has any one discovered or even 
conjectured a decay of the wild denizens of earth or air on this 
account ? Does any one imagine that the elephant is smaller or 
weaker than he was when he trampled down armed squadrons on 
old barbaric battlefields, ages on ages ago, or that the African 
lion is a less formidable animal than when his angry roar shook 
the Roman Coliseum? 

It may be said that inasmuch as the strong males destroy or 
banish from the herd the weak males, and that in times of scarcity 
and hardship the weaker animals of both sexes perish, a natural 
provision has been made to guard against deterioration, whether 
arising from in-and-in breeding or any other cause. In respect 
to animals which herd together in large numbers, and which are 
periodically exposed to severe vicissitudes of climate and periods 
of scarcity of food, this would be in a great measure true ; but 
there are portions of the earth where some classes of animals, 
particularly those of lower organizations and solitary habits, 
cannot be supposed to be subject to such casualties, or to any 
which would have the effect of regularly weeding out those pos- 



78 

sessed of less than the average of strength and hardiness. And 
I apprehend we shall find no natural laws necessary for the pro- 
tection of animal life and vigor, enforced in respect to the higher 
and not the lower organizations, or which require a special and 
local set of circumstances to bring their benevolent effects into 
operation. 

Interbreeding between near relatives becomes fatal to physical 
imperfection, but the drift of testimony goes to show that it is 
innocuous to perfection.* 



* A majority of the most celebrated breeders and improvers of English cattle have been 
close in-and-in breeders, such as Bakewell, the founder of the improved long-horn or New 
Leicester cattle, Price, " the most successful Hereford cattle breeder on record until twenty 
years ago," the Collings, Mason, Maynard, Wetherill, Sir Charles Knightly, Bates, the 
Booths, &c, <fec, breeders of Short-Horns. In the first volume American Short-Horn Herd 
Book (edited by Lewis F. Allen, Esq.,) are diagrams showing the continuous and close in-and- 
in breeding which produced the bull Comet, by far the most superb and celebrated animal of 
his day, and which sold, at Charles Colling"s sale, for the then unprecedented price of $5,000. 
His pedigree cannot be stated so as to make the extent of the in-and-in breeding, of which 
he was the result, fully apparent except to persons familiar with such things, and such persons 
probably need no information on the subject. But this much all will see the force of : the 
bull Bolingbioke and the cow Phenix, which were more closely related to each other than half 
brother and sister, were coupled and produced the bull Favorite. Favorite was then coupled 
with his own dam and produced the cow Young Phenix. He was then coupled with his own 
daughter (Young Phenix) and their produce was the world-famed Comet. One of the best 
breeding cows in Sir Charles Knightly "s herd (Restless) was the result of still more continuous 
in-and-in breeding. I will state a part of the pedigree. The bull Favorite was put to his 
own daughter, and then to his own grand-daughter, and so on to the produce of his produce 
in regular succession for six generations. The cow which wus the result of the sixth inter- 
breeding, was then put to the bull Wellington, " deeply interbred on the side of both sire and 
dam in the blood of Favorite, and the produce was the cow Clarissa, an admirable animal and 
the mother of Restless. Mr. Bates, whose Short-Horns were never excelled (if equalled) in 
England, put sire to daughter and grand-daughter, son to dam and grand-dam, and brother 
to sister, indifferently, his rule being " always to put the best animals together, regardless of 
any affinity of blood," as A. B. Allen imforms me he distinctly declared to him, and indeed 
as his recorded practice in the Herd Book fully proves. It is true that his Duchess family 
became impotent — ceased to breed; and this has been seized on as a proof of the danger of in- 
and-in breeding. But Mr. Bates did not so regard it. He continued his previous course of in- 
and-in breeding with his other animals until his death, and with triumphant success. The editor 
the American Short-Horn Herd Book writes me : " As to Mr. Bates' cows being barren, that 
defect related to one family only, the Duchesses, which was constitutional in the first of them, 
and probably accidental." To the point of their ceasing to breed, they apparently grew more 
perfect in every particular. Mr. Price, whose Herefords were the best in England in his day, 
declared, in an article published in the British Farmers' Magazine, that he had not gone 
beyond his own herd for a bull or a cow for forty years. 

It is not denied that Bakewell selected his original flock of long-wooled sheep from different 
flocks and families wherever he could obtain most perfection, but after that he bred in-and-in 
to the period of his death, and the Dishley sheep did not evince their subsequent feebleness 
of constitution when under his direction. The same statement will apply to Jonas Webb, the 
great breeder of South Downs. The Stud Book is full of examples of celebrated horses pro- 
duced by close in-and-in breeding. Favorite varieties of the pig have been produced in the 
same way. There are families of rabbits, game fowls, pigeons, etc., which have been bred 



79 

I do not recommend it per se, for who shall decide what perfec- 
tion is ? There comes a time generally when close in-and-in 
breeding between the artificial species which have been partly 
moulded by ma?i, produces loss of vigor and degeneracy, and some- 
times this fatal overthrow is but one step away from the pinnacle 
of apparent success. 

.But I would quite as sedulously abstain from running round 
from family to family and individual to individual to obtain a 
perpetual recurrence of disturbing and unnecessary crosses. 

And when crossing is resorted to, let it be in a uniform way 
and direction. Let every breeder establish his own standard and 
breed steadily to it. The French did this. Mr. Jarvis did this. 
Both, therefore, succeeded in establishing a new variety, not as 
uniform as an old variety, yet far more so than if either had pur- 
sued a deviating and changeable course. 

The sheep owner who changes the family and style of his rams 
every two or three years — now, for example, getting short, thick 
fleeced, and now long, open fleeced ones; now yolky and dark, 
and now dry and light-colored ones ; now low, broad carcassed, 
and now tall, narrow ones, &c, &c, — will never attain that 
degree of uniformity which is essential to a decently bred flock. 

There is another kind of crossing between varieties of the 
same breed for a different object than the one I have discussed, 
viz., to bring one of the varieties so crossed to the standard of the 

in-and-in for a long course of generations without deterioration of constitution and with a 
constant improvement of the points regarded in such animals. 

But the misfortune of it is, that while in-and-in breeding is the readiest road to uniformity 
and perfection in the thoroughly competent breeder's hands, it is the " edge tool " with which 
the incompetent one is sure to inflict swift destruction on his animals and his own interests. 
And there is another misfortune. Every man who owns animals fancies himself a competent 
breeder. He who has spent his life in other pursuits, reads a few books, picks up a few phrases, 
watches the proceedings of his shepherd a little, and then fancies he is a breeder! And he is 
not more mistaken in this supposition than is the unreading man, brought up on the farm, 
who has no knowledge on the subject outside of its traditions, and who, with the cant of 
" experience " ever on his tongue, never tried a carefully and properly conducted experiment 
in his life. No man can be a really able breeder who has not an abundance of theoretical 
knowledge, and an abundance of experience and long observation united. And even then I 
am inclined to think that, like the poet, he must be born to his business ! Inasmuch then as 
it requires so much skill to detect those qualities and tendencies (some of them invisible and 
only to be ascertained by inferences drawn from numerous minor facts) which should pre- 
vent in-and-in breeding in one instance, or indicate its propriety in another, it is perhaps 
best that the time-honored public and traditionary belief on the subject should remain unshaken, 
viz., that interbreeding between animals of any degree of affinity is wrong and highly danger- 
ous. As long as mankind started peopling the earth in this way, under the direct eve and 
provision of their Creator, it will hardly do to pronounce it malum in se, but let it be considered 
malum prohibitum, if the public pleases, in the strongest sense ! 



80 

ether. In this no middle line between the varieties is aimed at, 
but to give the offspring the characteristics of the best one by- 
crossing steadily towards the best one. I regard this as strictly- 
legitimate breeding. For example, if a flock master has one hun- 
dred ewes of Mr. Jarvis' family, described under No. 1, and 
wishes to convert them into such sheep as those described under 
No. 2 or No. 3, it is his true course then to breed them steadily 
to rams of the preferred flock, and so far as possible to those of 
the same individual character. If the Merino blood is absolutely 
pure on both sides, the assimilation will usually go on pretty 
rapidly and surely. Many former owners of good Saxons even, 
who had judgment to select proper American Merino rams, and 
who have held on in a steady line, now own flocks superior in 
actual value to very many pure American Merino flocks. 

I have alluded in a preceding note to the former admirable 
Saxon and Spanish flock of James M. Ellis, Esq., of Onondaga — 
called Saxon in the wool market, but built up on an early Span- 
ish Merino foundation.* Fifty ewes were taken from this flock 
in 1852, the fleeces of which weighed from 3| to 3| pounds. 
They and their descendants were bred steadily to heavy but fine 
fleeced American Merino rams. In the year 1860 the flock was 
284, and yielded an average of five pounds of thoroughly washed 
wool, (with an excess of 11 pounds on the whole flock.) and such 
was its condition on the sorter's table, that it lost but 5| pounds 
out of 1431 pounds, including strings and everything else rejected. 
It sorted as follows : No. 1, 71 lbs. ; No. 2, 331 lbs. ; No. 3, 493 
lbs. ; No. 4, 195 lbs. ; fribs, 189 lbs. ; No. 5, 102 lbs. ; No. 6, 29 
lbs. ; No. 7, 12 lb*. ; No. 8, 3| lbs. The wool of this flock, from 
its beautiful quality, style and condition, has sold for 50 cents a 
pound for five years past — within half a cent of the average price 
of the best wool during that period in the Boston market. It 
thus gives on the average $2.50 net to the fleece. How many 
unpampered flocks of American Merinos will equal this ? This 
is the fruit of a true cross. These sheep belong to James Ged- 
des, Esq., of Fairmount, Onondaga Co., N. Y.f 

In attempting thus to change the character of a flock, violent 

M 

* Gen. Ellis (father of James M. Ellis) purchased several sheep of Col. Humphreys, and 
kept a ram and ewe for his own use. Their blood mingles ia that of the present flock. 

f There are other excellent flocks of a similar cross, and a number of excellent American 
Merino flocks in the same county, but I am in possession of no definite statistics in relation to 
them. 



81 

crosses are to be avoided so far as materials will allow. First, 
the inferior variety should approach the characteristics of the supe- 
rior as far as practicable ; second, even the superior variety should 
avoid the greatest extremes in certain particulars, and unques- 
tionably so in size. In breeding up a Saxon flock to the Ameri- 
can Merino standard, that cross should not be commenced with 
an overgrown ram of the latter. How far this rule applies in 
respect to the qualities of the fleece, &c, there is a difference of 
opinion. The Germans are disposed to avoid too great dispari- 
ties in all particulars. 

Selection of Flocks. 

Carcass. In a climate like ours, and under a general system of 
sheep husbandry like ours, carcass is unquestionably the first 
point to be regarded even in the fine wooled sheep — because on 
the proper constitution, or the proper structure and connection 
of its parts, depends the health, vigor and hardiness of the ani- 
mal ; and without these, all other qualities are houses built on 
sand. Plump medium size, for the breed or variety, is the most 
desirable one. The body should be round and deep, not over 
long, and both the head and neck short and. thick. The back 
should be straight and broad ; the bosom and buttock full ; the 
legs decidedly short, well apart, straight and strong, with heavy 
forearm and fullness in the twist. This " pony-built" figure, as 
farmers term it, indicates hardiness, easiness of keep, and a pre- 
disposition to take on flesh. 

Skin. The skin should be of a rich, deep, rosy color. Tho 
Spaniards ever justly regarded this a point of much importance, 
as indicative of the fattening or easy-keeping properties of the 
animal, and of a normal and healthy condition of the system. 
The skin should be thinnish, mellow, elastic, and particularly 
loose on the carcass. A white skin, when the animal is in health, 
or a tawny one, is rarely found on a high bred Merino. A thick, 
stiff, inelastic skin, like that found on many badly bred French 
sheep, is highly objectionable. 

Folds. The Spanish, French and German breeders approved 
of folds in the skin, considering them indications of a heavy fleece. 
The French have bred them over the entire bodies of many of 
their sheep. I have seen two hours and a half expended by an 
active and skilful shearer, in my barn, in getting the fleece de- 
cently off a ram of this stamp. This might do better in a differ- 



82 

ent climate, and in countries where labor costs nothing ; but the 
additional quantity of wool will not pay for it in this.* Besides, 
it is unsightly, because excessively unnatural. A deep, soft, 
plaited dewlap on both sexes, and some slight corrugation on the 
neck of the ram, were all our older breeders of the Merino desired 
in this way. The fashion has extended to heavy neck folds, par- 
ticularly on the ram, a short fold or two back of the elbow, and 
some small ones round and on the roots of the tail and on the 
breech— the latter running in the direction of lines drawn from 
the tail to the stifle. Gentle corrugations over the body, which 
can be pulled smooth in shearing, are also tolerated. 

Fleece. Wool long enough to do up in the fleece is not desir- 
able on the nose under the eyes,-} or on the legs below the knees 
and hocks, though a thick coat of shortish wool on the latter, and 
particularly on the hind legs, is regarded as a good point. The 
arm pits and most of the base of the scrotum must necessarily be 

* I mean additional quantity caused by the folds of the skin, for as a mere " sig»" of a 
thick fleece they amount to nothing. The cost of additional labor is not the sole consideration. 
It is frequently a difficult thing to find time to shear a large flock of sheep between the rain 
storms from 15th of June to 10th of July. The farmer is often compelled to house his flocks 
for twenty-four hours in succession, to keep them dry for the shearers; and besides getting 
miserably dirty with green dung, they become so hollow and lank, (for they will scarcely touch 
dry hay,) and their skins so flabby, that it almost doubles the difficulty of shearing them. 
And this is very injurious treatment to ewes having young lambs. Prime shearers are scarce. 
What then would he do, who had 300 or 500 such sheep as I have named in the text, to get 
sheared ! Suppose he obtained five or even ten pounds more wool from 100 sheep, would it not 
be vastly more economical to go to the expense of keeping one or two additional sheep to obtain 
it? There is no sensible point of view in which this excessive folding or wrinkling of the skin 
over the whole body is not an unmitigated nuisance ! 

' f Long wool on the nose under the eyes is, like the preceding, a nuisance, on account of the 
obstruction which it offers to the siglit. I have several sheep which would become totally 
blind at least twice a year, by the wool closing over their eyes, if it was not cut away. And 
long before it thus closes over, the sheep can only see laterally, so that they can be closely 
approached in front or rear, by man or dog walking noiselessly on the grass, or amidst the 
other noises of the barn yard. When they at last discover the approaching body so near them, 
they bound away in an agony of fright even from their familiar keeper. This obstruction of 
the sight is therefore very destructive to the quietness and docility which should characterize 
a well managed flock. And such sheep do not do as well in the winter, unless the wool is 
repeatedly clipped from around their eyes, because their companions are constantly taking 
advantage of them at rack and trough. Let us have no such "fancy" monstrosities as this 
and the preceding inflicted on our valuable American flocks. But a good foretop is justly 
regarded as a fine point. It should be of good length, dense, and the wool stand at right angles 
to the forehead. In should descend in a curve on the nose a little below the line of the eyes, 
circle round the eyes at just sufficient distance not to obstruct the sight, and join the wool on 
the cheeks and upper part of the neck, without break or opening. 

I have omitted speaking of the ears. They should be small, coated with thick, soft, mossy 
hair, about half way to the roots, so as to give them a feeling of thickness and softness ; and 
the remainder of the outer surface should be covered with wool. A thin, hard, and especially 
a naked ear, is highly objectionable. j 



83 

bare ; but these cavities should be as small as the freedom of 
movement permits ; and all the other parts of the body and limbs 
should be densely covered with wool of as uniform length as is 
attainable. It is a specially fine characteristic to see it of full 
' length on the belly, forehead, cheeks, and on the legs as far down 
as the knees and hocks. 

The wool should stand at right angles to the surface, except 
on the inside of the legs and on the scrotum ; it should present 
a dense, smooth, even surface externally, dropping apart nowhere; 
and the masses of wool between those natural cracks or divisions 
which are always seen on the surface, should be of medium dia- 
meter. If they are too small, they indicate a fineness of fleece 
which is incompatible with its proper weight ; if too large, they 
indicate coarse, harsh wool.* 

The good properties of wool are too well understood to require 
many words. Length is no longer an objection to the finest 
staple, as it once was.f The maximum, both of thickness and 
length, cannot be attained on the same animal, and the object 
of the breeder should be to produce that particular combination 
or co-existence of these properties which will give the heaviest 
fleece. 

Fineness. The grower knows his market, and must produce an 
article adapted to it. In the American market there is a much 
larger demand for medium than fine wools, and the former com- 
mands much the best price in proportion to cost of production. 
It is to be hoped, however, that the demand for fine wools will 
increase. Whatever the quality aimed at, it should be the same 
throughout the flock so far as it is practicable. 

Evenness. Evenness of quality in every part of the fleece, so 
far as this can be attained, is one of the first points of a well bred 
sheep. Jar is very objectionable, but not as much so as what 
the Germans term dog's-hair — hair growing out through the wool 
on the thighs, the edges of the neck folds, about the roots of the 

* Mr. Fleichmann gives the German standard of their diameter at one-sixteenth of an inch. 
I should say one-quarter of an inch was quite small enough for the American Merino. Viewed 
very closely, these masses are not, in many high bred American Merinos, strictly flat on the 
surface, but slightly butroidal, each tuft composing it having a rounded end. Pointed ends, 
particularly if their extremities are curled or twisted, and have a hairy appearance, indicate 
thinness and unevenness of fleece. 

f The long fine wools, say two inches and over, are now manufactured into delaines, <tc. ; 
and as already said, broadcloths are not made in our country. 



84 

horn in rams,* or standing scattered here and there through the 
fleece or inside the legs. This indicates bad blood or a defective 
course of breeding. 

Trueness and Soundness. Wool should be of equal diameter 
from the root to the point of the fibre. It should especially be 
free from any finer and weaker spot or "joint" in it, occasioned 
by a temporary illness or other low state of the animal. This 
can often be detected by the naked eye, and always by pulling the 
fibre. Wool is said to be sound, when it is strong and elastic. 

Pliancy and Softness are considerations of the first importance, 
not only as indicia of other qualities, but intrinsically. If we 
can suppose two lots of wool exactly to resemble each other in 
every other particular, but that under the same treatment one is 
comparatively stiff and hard to the touch, while the other has a 
silky pliancy and softness, the latter is decidedly the most valu- 
able, because it will produce manufactured articles far superior 
in beauty and for actual use. But in point of fact, full blood 
wool is almost invariably soft in proportion to its fineness, and is 
always so in proportion to its marketable value. A practiced 
buyer can decide on that value in the dark. 

Style is, perhaps, a word which has rather vague boundaries 
to its meaning ; but it includes that combination of useful and 
showy properties which give value to the choicest wool, viz : 
fineness, clearness of color, lustre, uniformity and beauty of curv- 
ing, and that peculiar mode of opening on the body, or disposi- 
tion of the fibres in the sheared fleece, which indicate the last 
extreme of pliancy and softness. These qualities, in combina- 
tion, present an appearance which at once, without a sufficiently 
close inspection to discover the separate fibres, or even without 
a touch of the hand, point out the best fleece in the pile. 

Yolk. This, in its most usual form, is a semi-fluid, unctuous 
secretion from the skin, found in "the wool of various breeds of 
sheep, and particularly in that of the Merino. Sometimes there 
is only enough of it to lubricate and make a shining coating on 
every fibre. In others, it appears additionally in little brilliant 
globules among the fibres. In others still, it forms a separate, 
visible and abundant mass in the lower part of the wool. In 
some instances it is as thin as the most delicate oil ; in others, 

* When the back of a ram's head has been severely bruised in fighting, hair sometimes suc- 
ceeds to the original wool, and offers no proof of bad breeding, 



85 

pasty and viscid ; in others it has the spissitude of soft wax, and 
appears in particles or even in concretions of considerable size 
within the wool j* and when it is sufficiently abundant in the 
fluid form to ooze constantly to the outer extremity, it catches 
and retains dust, the pollen of hay, &c, and gradually inspissates 
into that black gummy mass now so eagerly sought for by a class 
of Merino breeders. 

Vauquelin, a celebrated French chemist, found that various 
specimens of yolk contained about the same constituents: 1. A 
soapy matter with a basis of potash, which formed a greater part 
of it. 2. A small quantity of carbonate of potash. 3. A percep- 
tible quantity of acetate of potash. 4. Lime, whose state of com* 
bination he was unacquainted with. 5. An atom of muriate of 
potash. 6. An animal oil, to which he attributed the peculiar 
odor of yolk. He found the yolk of French and Spanish Merinos 
essentially the same. 

This substance is, then, substantially a soap — and the usual 
terms of grease, oil, etc, are not correctly applied to it. It 
washes freely from the hands, except that an unctuous feeling is 
left by the trace of fatty matter in it. The hands of shearers, 
kept covered with it for a number of days, grow perceptibly 
softer and whiter at every washing. 

With a few hours previous soaking, it will wash almost entirely 
out of wool in soft, warmish brook water, except, perhaps, the 
external black gum. Let sheep be exposed to a warm rain long 
enough to wet through the wool, and let them then be thoroughly 
washed the next day in soft water falling in a swift, heavy cur* 
rent over a mill-dam, or from an aqueduct, and the owner will 
find (perhaps to his consternation) that even his black gum has 
disappeared, unless, perhaps, on old rams and a few incorrigibly 
dirty and " gummy" ewes. Yolk of any form that will remain in 
visible masses in the wool after such a washing, is improperly 
there ; and he who cultivates it pursues an illegitimate line of 
breeding. Few or none of our farmers wash their sheep thus, on 
the ground that buyers will make no adequate compensation for 
the cleaner and lighter condition of the wool. 

In the hard water of the limestone regions, wool washes much 
less cleanly. And I am informed by experienced wool buyers 

* In the fleece of the first imported French Merino I ever opened — not apparently a very 
yolky one, and quite light colored externally — I found some of these concretions as large as 
an ordinary bean flattened. 



86 

that much more yolk appears in the same wool and sheep, in some 
regions than in others. Ohio and Michigan fine wools are said 
to be ten per cent, freer from yolk than New York wools, and 
New York ten per cent, freer than Vermont wools.* I know by 
my own experience that sheep driven from the wheat soils of 
Onondaga county become lighter colored in Cortland county. 
Taken back, the same sheep again resume their dark color. 

There are some incidental and easily explainable reasons for a 
part of this. On wheat lands, sheep are put on stubbles and 
become dirtier. The heaviest fleeced flocks of Vermont, from 
which high-priced breeding sheep are sold, are sheltered in sum- 
mer as well as winter from rain, and thus all their natural yolk 
is retained. 

There is another explanation of the difference in this particular 
between Ohio, New York and Vermont wools. This is in the 
breed of the sheep. Ohio has a smaller proportion of the heavy 
fleeced yolky Merinos than New York,f and New York a less pro- 
portion (though a larger number in the aggregate) than Vermont. 

The uses of yolk have been stated by all writers to render the 
wool pliant and to promote its growth. The structure of wool, 
discovered by modern investigation, suggests other uses. Wool 
is covered with sharp projections, running in a uniform direction 

* I am not sure that this remark applies to all parts of Ohio. 

f According to the census of 1850, the average weight of fleeces in Ohio fell not greatly 
below that of New York ; but that, I take it, was owing to the fact that the common, low grade, 
dry-wooled farmer's sheep of Ohio are larger and heavier fleeced animals than those of New 
York. If limestone land and water, feeding on stubbles, etc., either increases the yolk (which 
is very doubtful) or increases the amount of dirt caught and retained by the yolk, and if lime- 
stone water fails to remove these as thoroughly as soft water, (both of which are undoubtedly 
facts,) then much of the grain growing portions of both Ohio and New York should produce 
heavier washed or unwashed fleeces than New England, or than the southern tier counties of New 
York ; and so I have no doubt they would, if all other circumstances were made strictly equal. 
On the best wheat lands of New York, sheep do not require to be fed on stubbles to get dirty. 
Those lands are generally seeded down with red clover, which does not, under any circum- 
stances, form so close a sod as the timothy, June grass, white clover, etc. of the grazing 
regions, and particularly not where it is broken up every two or three years in the usual way 
for grain. It is rare to see a clover pasture in the grain regions closely fed down, where the 
ground is not in every direction visible between the stools of clover; and the sharp hoofs of 
the sheep loosen the dirt in summer, so that in one way or another it soils the surface of the 
wool. In the old pastures of many portions of New England and our own southern counties, 
it would be difficult to see the ground on one hundred acres. Unless the sheep have it blown 
on them from the roads or plowed fields, by the winds, they scarcely come in contact with a 
particle of dirt during the summer. These facts explain the differences in the color of the 
sheep in the two regions. The violent and pouring rains of the Southern states prevent a 
great accumulation of either yolk or dirt, so that all Merino sheep from the North grow lighter 
colored there, and climate may add to the effect. 



'87 

from the root towards theouter end. They may be compared to 
the projections on the beards of wheat or barley, only they are so 
fine that it requires^ powerful microscope to observe them. Mr. 
Youatt, the discoverer of them, found 2,560 in the space of an 
inch on fine Merino wool, 2,720 on an inch of Saxon wool, and 
that their number increased in proportion to the fineness of the 
fibre. These inconceivably minute points occasion the felting of 
wool. Eemove them by heated combs, as is done in the manu- 
facture of worsteds, and wool will not felt more than hair. 

Every motion of the sheep causes the portions of the fleece 
between the surface cracks to slide on each other. Those cracks 
are the joints of the fleece. If these masses were utterly dry, 
instead of being lubricated with yolk, the continual friction of 
their sides would cause injurious abrasion. The sharp processes 
which cause felting would be rubbed off from a portion of the 
wool, and that property of the wool proportionably damaged. 
Again : if the wool were dry, heavy rains, rubbing together and 
other circumstances, would unquestionably cause felting on the 
carcass, and in the case of very fine wooled sheep, to a destruc- 
tive extent. I have never seen either of these uses of yolk sug- 
gested before ; but am I mistaken in supposing that the facts are 
too obvious to admit of question ? 

To what extent yolk should be propagated in wool, is a matter 
of some doubt. If the manufacturer will pay the same price for 
it he pays for the wool, it is certainly profitable to add as much 
of it to the fleece as is consistent with the greatest product of 
wool. But I think it admits of no dispute that the excessive 
amount sometimes seen — giving to the long fleece, under a hot 
autumn or spring sun, the appearance of having been literally 
soaked in some oily fluid, is not often the accompaniment of a 
specially thick fleece, or of one which gives the best account of 
itself after scouring.* The heaviest fleeced flocks of our country 
do not present this appearance. Perhaps such an excess of secre- 
tion in one direction withdraws it from other and concurrent 
channels. This suspicion is certainly reasonable, if yolk, as has 
been believed among both the learned and unlearned, constitutes 
a portion of the pabulum of wool. 

Few persons, perhaps, understand how great a quantity of yolk 

* The idea advanced by most of our early writers on Merinos, that the more the yolk the 
finer the fleece, is now utterly exploded. 



88 

is really found in some fleeces. Chester Moses, an intelligent woolen 
manufacturer of Marcellus, New York, writes me that in 1861 he 
cleansed a ram's fleece which weighed in the yolk 19| lbs., and 
" found 4 lbs. of wool." The owner had paid a large price for 
the animal. Mr. Moses has reported to me, in conversation, a 
number of other equally strong cases, but as he asks in his letter 
to be " spared from saying more," I do not feel at liberty to cite 
them. 

All Merino rams' fleeces waste much more in cleansing than ewes' 
fleeces, but will any one undertake to say that it is good legiti- 
mate breeding to grow rams even whose natural fleeces will shrink 
nearly four-fifths in washing ! Breeding such sheep may lead to 
one excellent result. When it has become sufficiently general it 
will drive manufacturers to make juster discriminations than 
they now do between moderately yolky and excessively yolky 
wools, but the moment that desirable object is attained, the sheep 
which produced the change must go out of fashion. 

These wet looking sheep do not bear excessive cold as well as 
those having only a reasonable amount of yolk. Every flock 
master has found that they soonest " curl up " and shiver in the 
biting gale. Soap is not as warm as wool, and the congellation 
of this soap towards the outer extremity of the wool leaves open 
these surface cracks so as to let in wind and cold more than they 
are let in through drier fleeces. 

I have already given a criterion for deciding what kinds or 
qualities of yolk should certainly be regarded as improper. Our 
best breeders, however, go further and decidedly object to much 
internal " gum," whether it will wash out or not. They think 
the wool should open freely on the back and sides of the animal 
and without sticking together, except at the end, at any period 
of the year. They desire a liberal quantity of yolk in its most 
fluid form, and of consequence cannot object to a moderate degree 
of external "gum;" but neither the excessively wet looking 
sheep I have mentioned, nor those which look as if they had a 
thick, continuous coating of tar and lamp-black extending three- 
sixteenths of an inch into the wool, are in favor among the best 
breeders. 

Vauquelin assumed that the yolk left in sheared wool begins to 
injure it after a few months if not scoured out. I find by inquiry 
that the same opinion prevails among our manufacturers. The 



best brook-washed Merino wool, exposed to the air after shearing, 
gradually loses its lustre and softness and turns yellowish. For 
a time it acquires a waxy feeling, but gradually becomes dry and 
harsh. 

Formerly, like many other breeders, I attached considerable 
importance to the color of yolk, believing that it must be white, 
or rather colorless, so the wool would open a pure white ; but Mr. 
T. S. Faxton, of Utica, N. Y., Mr. James Roy, of West Troy, N. 
Y., and Mr. A. W. Hunter, of Schenectady, N. Y., all practical 
woolen manufacturers, to whom I addressed special inquiries on 
the subject, assured me that the color of the yolk is of no conse- 
quence to the manufacturer ; and they also say that its quantity 
and consistency are only important so far as they cause loss in 
scouring. Mr. Faxton, however, excepts black " gum" on the outer 
end, which he says he clips off. He manufactures fine cassimeres. 

Mr. Roy puts the cost of removing the yolk at " not over a 
quarter of a cent per pound," and the shrinkage in scouring of 
" fine fleeces, fairly washed before shearing," from 35 to 50 per 
cent. ; " Merino flocks seldom under 45 to 50 per cent." He thinks 
" it makes no difference to the farmer what appearance the oil 
[yolk] exhibits." 

Mr. Hunter puts the cost of cleansing at one-half to one cent 
a pound; says he "always obtains the strongest staple from 
healthy, well-fed and consequently oily [yolky] sheep, and the 
tender, poorly grown wool from ill-conditioned and lean sheep ;" 
and he sets down the shrinkage in scouring (brook-washed wools 
he undoubtedly means) at 25 to 50 per cent., and "even a higher 
percentage of loss on rams' and fat wethers' fleeces." 

Mr. L. Pomroy & Sons, woolen manufacturers of Pittsfield, 
Mass., write that " the yolk has more tendency to grow the wool 
together, and cannot be scoured out to take even colors, particu- 
larly an indigo blue." The word yolk is undoubtedly here used (as 
some writers have used it) to signify that bright saffron-colored 
substance which appears on wool, which is technically termed 
" yellowed," and which is accompanied with more or less felting 
on the back, or '• cotting," as farmers term it. In " cotted " 
fleeces the felting sometimes extends but a little distance from 
the skin, sometimes far enough to prove very injurious. 

I find the color of the yolk in the original Spanish sheep 
alluded to but by very few writers. But Lord Somerville, who 



visited Spain in 1802 for the purpose of examining its Merinos 
and bringing home a flock, and who is generally a very accurate 
writer, makes the following statement in his Essay on Sheep : 
" By yolk is meant that yellow substance which escapes from the 
skin and is to be found in the wool of every Merino sheep when 
in health and good condition." And the very name of yolk for 
this substance, which I believe came from Spain, would, if I have 
not mistaken its derivation, imply the same fact. I take it for 
granted that it obtained that name from its resemblance in color 
and consistency to the yolk of an egg. 

I have pursued this question of color thus far because the 
establishment of an imaginary criterion of excellence is always 
very unfortunate to the breeder. It not only directs his time and 
efforts towards an object of no importance, but inasmuch as the 
attainment of any real or fancied excellence is generally accom- 
panied by some sacrifice in other quarters, it causes him, so far 
as that sacrifice extends, to exchange substance for shadow. I 
have seen a purchaser reject the obviously better animal because 
its yolk was yellow, while that of the selected one was white or 
colorless. 

Housing Sheep to Preserve Yolk in the Wool. Early 
Shearing. Pampering. 

As already remarked, the flocks of Merinos in Vermont and a 
few in New York from which high-priced breeding sheep are sold, 
are sheltered not only from the storms of winter, but from the 
rains of summer ; and even in the pleasantest weather many of 
the flocks do not lie out of doors nights more than about two and 
a half months in the year. 

This is done to retain all the natural yolk in the wool. Rain 
and even dew to some degree dissolve and rinse it out. The 
object of retaining it is to preserve that dark coating which is so 
much sought after, and because it forms an important auxiliary 
in the weight of those monster unwashed fleeces which is to be 
proclaimed to the world.* 

* A class of sellers attain the first object, and to some extent the second, by a shorter and 
cheaper process. They color their sheep with a preparation of burnt umber and oil, which 
forms a coating so closely resembling that of a highly yolky housed sheep, that it requires 
considerable experience to detect the difference. This is termed in Vermont "the Cornwall 
finish." No Vermont breeder of character thus colors his sheep, but many of the " Merinos" 
driven from that State and hawked through the Middle and Western States foi the last 
twenty years, have been thus colored. 



91 

The sheep which are to be sold are usually sheared about the' 
first of May, and some of them earlier. 

If a number of sheep were selected from the same flock so 
closely resembling each other that if divided into two parcels 
one could scarcely choose between them, and then if one of these 
parcels were treated as above described, and the other in the 
ordinary way — that is to say, if the latter were wholly unhoused 
except in the winter, and not sheared until near the first of July, 
no inexperienced person who should examine the two parcels in 
the ensuing fall or winter could be made to believe they were 
sheep of the same quality. Explain to him fully the difference 
in their treatment, and still the effect produced upon his eyes 
would so far control his judgment that he would pay twice as 
much for the housed and early sheared sheep. 

The leading breeders of Vermont are guilty of no deception 
in these particulars, for they frankly avow their treatment and 
their motives for it. And they might ask if it is not as legiti- 
mate to put a sheep as a horse or any other piece of property in 
its best form for sale. 

But it is undeniable that the practices named lead to many 
disappointments. The buyer never finds his sheep looking so 
dark-colored again, and he is astonished sometimes to find that 
after he has sheared them once these supposed prodigies are no 
"woolier" than sheep he owned before. Besides, the sheep 
which has been carefully housed from storms all its life does not 
always do so well when exposed to them. 

It costs no trifling sum to house sheep in the summer. On a 
large establishment and with flocks scattered in distant fields, the 
expense and trouble would be highly onerous. The early shear- 
ing, too, causes much additional labor in protecting the sheep 
from the cold spring weather. It is not seriously claimed that 
either of these practices benefit the sheep* or add to their pro- 
duct of cleansed wool. If all flock masters were to adopt them 
they would not even help the interests of the seller. 

Without wishing to attach any censure to such honorable per- 

* In some places housing is necessary against dogs ; but in that case they should be housed 
all the year. 

Some claim that the early sheared sheep winter better; but five months' growth of wool 
before December ought to be quite sufficient for the protection of heavy fleeced and winter- 
housed sheep. Others claim that early sheared sheep " coat over" better (grow darker col- 
ored with yolk) ; and this is probably true. At all events they becomo dark colored earlier in 
the season. 



92 

sons who now employ these modes of fitting their sheep for sale, 
as avow them to all persons wishing to purchase, whether questioned 
on the subject or not, I may be permitted to express the hope that 
such a purely unnecessary waste of labor and capital may not 
become customary throughout the thoroughbred flocks of our 
country. 

I should not satisfy my convictions of duty if I did not utter 
my earnest protest in this connection against another practice 
introduced and to some extent keeping pace with the preceding 
ones — that of over-feeding sheep not intended for slaughter. A 
portion of those people who shelter their flocks in the summer 
and autumn, commence giving them grain at the same time, and 
the only limits to their feeding in winter are the appetite of the 
animal and the necessary care for its immediate safety. Very 
high condition not only adds to the size, roundness, apparent 
compactness and " nearness to the ground " of the carcass, but 
quite as materially to the growth of wool and the secretion of yolk. 
Between a ram allowed to run with ewes, unsheltered except in 
winter, and in all respects treated in the ordinary way, and the 
same ram used to ewes singly, sheltered from rain and dew, and 
constantly fed to the verge of safety, the difference in the weight 
of even the washed fleece will not fall short of about 20 per 
centum ; but if the fleece is weighed in the yolk, as is the custom 
among owners of show sheep, the difference will often reach 33£ 
per centum. 

What is the object of this pampering? Under any circum- 
stances, and especially in connection with early shearing and sum- 
mer sheltering, it fits sheep entirely to outshow and excel in the 
product of wool far better unpampered ones ; and these consider- 
ations influence buyers just in proportion to their inexperience 
and ignorance of " the tricks of the trade." No sensible man 
will seriously pretend that, taking one year with another, the 
actual increase of wool by such means will pay for the employ- 
ment of those means. Every experienced flock-master knows 
that it destroys the hardiness of the animal. Most of these pam- 
pered sheep go down at once, or gradually fail in vigor, and at 
length succumb to the slightest casualty, if put back on common 
feed and subjected to the ordinary treatment. And even if the 4 
forcing system is continued, the constitution eventually becomes 
so effete that it requires extra care and skill to guard against 



93 

accidents. The slightest one produces fatal consequences. It is 
next to impossible to combat any disorder successfully in a long- 
pampered sheep, or raise it up again if it becomes poor or debil- 
itated. The vital energies appear to be all exhausted. 

How often has a zealous beginner paid an extraordinary price 
for animals (whether Merinos, South Downs, Long-wools of this 
or that designation, Short-Horn cattle, &c.) to find that with his 
utmost pains he cannot keep up either their appearance or their 
productiveness ? His Merino sheep produce a third less wool. 
The word of promise was kept to the ear but broken to the hope. 
He was told with verbal truthfulness that they had yielded this 
or that enormous amount of wool and yolk in a year, but he was 
not told that it was in part produced by an unnatural and de- 
structive system of forcing; that he was buying a spent hot-bed, 
capable under no circumstances of another such yield, and soon 
to become worthless. 

If the sheep breeder has as good a right as the horse breeder 
to " fit his animals for sale," it would be an insult to common 
morality and common decency to claim that either of them has 
the right purposely and materially to impair the constitution and 
value of his animals, to obtain a readier sale and a higher price 
than neighbors who do not resort to such swindling tricks. The 
only pretence of justification is the old one : " If my neighbor 
does so, I must or sell nothing." If this excuse is valid, then 
every man has a right to steal to keep up with thievish neighbors! 

Fortunately the practice is comparatively new and limited in 
our country, so far as regards the American Merino sheep. If 
leading breeders will rigorously eschew and brand it with their 
outspoken condemnation, it will soon disappear. If they will 
not, at least the buyer has a patent duty in the premises, and 
that is to avoid every highly pampered flock as tainted by fraud; 
and can he who attempts a fraud in one particular be trusted in 
others ? Are his pedigrees of sheep of any value ? 

While I intend to be distinctly understood as not including 
early shearing and summer sheltering, if avowed, among frauds, 
I again call attention to the fact that they can be and are made 
potent auxiliaries by those who pamper for dishonest purposes, 
and therefore they have the odor of bad association on them. 
Is this not an additional reason for abandoning them? Is it not 
the safest, fairest and best course, on the whole, to abandon all 



94 

unnecessary* and over artificial, and, for all legitimate objects, 
wholly profitless systems in the management of our sheep ? These 
remarks imply no objection to good keep in summer and winter 
and to good winter shelter; and though a cavil might be raised 
as to where the demarcation line is to be drawn between good 
keep and pampering, every flock master possessing common sense 
will fully understand the distinction, without any explanations. 

Breeding. 

The art of breeding is the art of selecting and coupling together 
those males and females which are best adapted to produce an 
improved and uniform offspring. Some of its important princi- 
ples have already been alluded to under preceding heads. The 
first great rule of breeding is that like produces like. But this 
must be held to extend to blood as well as individual character- 
istics, or else it is a rule which will mislead the inexperienced. 
Let two mongrel animals of the closest resemblance be coupled 
together and there is not the least certainty that they will repro- 
duce themselves in their offspring, or that their offspring of dif- 
ferent years will be like each other. I have already spoken of 
the cropping out of base blood. 

In selecting animals for coupling, especial pains should be 
taken not to interbreed those possessing the same defect, be- 
cause in that case observation proves that the offspring inherit 
something like the aggregate of the defect of both parents — that 
is to say, if the ram is defective in the crops (in proper fullness 
back of the shoulders) to an extent expressed by 2, and the ewe 
to an extent expressed by 3, their offspring will possess the defect 
to something like the extent of 5. Of course this rule is not 
invariable, and would not continue to apply to its full extent if 
breeding between the produce of these similarly defective animals 
was continued, for in that case they would soon have no crops at 
all. I like the arithmetical form of the statement, however, be- 
cause it holds up before the mind in a tangible and impres- 

* There are plaeeg, undoubtedly, where it may be more prudent to shut up sheep nights to 
protect them from dogs. Where this is immediately stated to you by a gentleman like William 
Chamberlain in regard to his costly imported sheep, you feel that there is a necessity for 
it ; and if he frankly adds that he prefers thus to preserve the color of his sheep, according 
to the German system to which they have ever been used, you are fully satisfied with his 
motives. 



95 

sive form the consequences of one of the worst errors of bad 
breeding.* 

A defect may be an individual or family one. The latter is far 
more likely to be transmitted to the progeny. The other some- 
times appears to be accidental, and is not forcibly transmitted. 
I would rather breed from a slightly defective animal from a very 
perfect family, than from a very perfect animal from a slightly 
defective family. 

The obstinacy with which family peculiarities are sent down 
to remote generations, finds constant exemplifications. Do we 
not, in the red and tawny and occasionally black spots which 
appear on the legs, ears, and even bodies of new born Merino 
lambs, find traces of the fine-wooled flocks of those colors in 
Spain, described ages ago by Strabo, Pliny and Columella ? Be- 
tween 1824 and 1826 David Ely, of Pompey, N. Y., purchased an 
imported Saxon ram of surprising individual excellence, but 
marked with this peculiarity : his ears were not half the length 
or breadth of the normal ear.f He transmitted the same pecu- 
liarity to his offspring, and they retransmitted it. I have seen 
animals of the fifteenth or twentieth cross away from these 
" little eared sheep/' as they are called — that is, no ram possess- 
ing that characteristic was used in all those crosses — and yet the 
peculiarity was fully preserved. I have seen large, coarse- wooled 
mutton sheep, with Mr. Ely's Saxon blood nearly all bred out, 
arithmetically speaking, carrying the same distinctive mark. If 
it disappears for a generation or two, it often crops out again in 
full vigor. 

The defects of one parent should be met by peculiar excellence 
of the other parent in the same point. If the dam is " high on 
legs," she should be bred to a ram with short legs ; if thin-fleeced, 
to an uncommonly thick-fleeced ram, and so on.J This, however, 

. * It would be strictly accurate to say that if animals possessing the same defect are inter- 
bred with each other, the offspring should be expected to inherit that defect to a greater 
extent than either parent, and that continuing such a course of breeding would soon increase 
the defect to the greatest practicable extent, and in the case of defects affecting the consti- 
tution of the animal, to a fatal extent. 

f I think Mr. Grove told me that this peculiarity first originated accidentally or as a mon- 
strosity in Saxony, but that as it occurred on a very superior animal, the owner continued to 
breed from him and his descendants. They failed, however, to obtain a permanent standing, 
as their ears did not admit of either of the German systems of numbering on those members. 

1 1 have already alluded (under head of crossing) to a German theory in opposition to " vio- 
lent crossing," even to get rid of defects. So far as size is concerned, I have no doubt of its 
accuracy, but after thirty years observation I have yet to learn that a ram can be too perfect 



96 

is to bo understood within certain limitations. These counter- 
actions are to be sought within the circle of proper excellence 
and proper uniformity in other particulars. The distinguishing 
features aimed at in the flock are neither to be sacrificed nor con- 
stantly changed or disturbed for the purpose of producing a sud- 
den amendment in a single point. 

There is a practical fact of the utmost importance in the 
selection of breeding rams. All do not transmit their qualities 
in an equal degree to their offspring. The power to " mark off- 
spring," as it is termed, according to my observation, depends 
most on two properties. The first and by far the most influential 
of these is blood. By blood I mean nothing mysterious or unex- 
plainable. I simply mean that blood which has flowed so long in 
one distinct channel, and through animals so closely alike in all 
their properties, that it has acquired a power resembling that of 
species — a power continuously to reproduce animals of the same 
family and almost the same individual characteristics. Under this 
definition the unsightly ass may have as high and pure blood as 
the winged courser of Arabia — the miserable, hairy, broad-tailed 
sheep of Asia and Africa, as the far descended Merino of Spain. 

The ram should not only then have a faultless pedigree, but, 
if practicable, be drawn from an old, distinct, well-marked family 
of Merinos that have been the same as a whole and uniform 
among themselves for a long course of generations. I used to 
notice, when I dabbled in crosses between Merinos and coarse 
breeds, that a ram which was the produce of in-and-in breeding 
stamped his properties on the mongrel oifspring with peculiar 
force ; and I am not certain this rule does not obtain to some 
degree among full bloods. I am inclined to question whether the 
great cavanas of Spain, some of them once numbering 40,000 
sheep, would ever have acquired their remarkable identity of 
characteristics without that in-and-in breeding to which they were 
subjected. Some intelligent observer of them in Spain, fifty or 
sixty years ago, whose name I do not now remember, said that 
in every hundred there were ten rather better and ten rather 

in the characteristics desired, to be coupled with the most imperfect ewe. Nay, I would go a 
step further in the direction of violent crossing, by coupling animals of opposite extremes in 
many points. For example, I would (other things being equal) breed dry-wooled French or 
coarse-wooled sheep to my yolkiest fleeced ram, even though that ram was too yolky fleeced to 
be used with ewes which already had enough yolk. If this is correct breeding, it follows that 
a defect is sometimes counteracted by a defect, or by an opposite excellence carried so far as to 
become a defect. 



97 

worse ones, but that the other eighty could hardly be distin- 
guished one from another. 

The second property I have noticed in the ram, which gives 
him the power strongly to impress his qualities on his offspring, 
is constitutional vigor. He should be thoroughly masculine. He 
should be compact and massive in every part — his large scrotum 
almost sweeping the ground. He should not have a particle of a 
" ewe-look " about him. Even his fleece should not be as fine as 
a ewe's fleece. He should have strength to knock down an ox. 
He should have undaunted courage and delight in battle — fight- 
ing with desperate determination until slain or acknowledged 
master of the flock! I have often seen a ram that if shut in a 
barn would go through the side of it at a single blow like a cat- 
apult. Other things being equal, such are more usually, accord- 
ing to my experience, the rams which transmit their characteris- 
tics to their descendants. 

But where blood and constitutional vigor are apparently equal, 
there is still an undeniable difference in this particular-r-how 
occasioned it is impossible to say. No one can pronounce confi- 
dently that he has a prime sire ram until the ram has been actu- 
ally tested. Unless found to produce highly excellent and highly 
uniform offspring, the showiest and costliest animal should be 
promptly abandoned.* 

The wonderful ram of mine mentioned in Sheep Husbandry in 
the South,f whose wool Dr. Emmons proved, by actual admea- 
surement, to be finer than most Saxon wool, and who yet produced 
a heavy fleece for those times — highly-bred and far descended, a 
model of beauty — did not reproduce his own traits very strongly 
in his offspring — certainly not his exceptional fineness. And this 
exhibits the effects of another well-settled rule, that the repro- 
duction of exceptional valuable traits — exceptional either to the 
variety or family — can never be counted on with confidence. It 
seems to me, indeed, that they are less reproductive than excep- 
tional bad traits. Nature appears to have intended that the 
improvement of her handiwork should be a high art, calling out 

* The noblest figure of a ram I ever saw, without an exception, and an animal for which the 
owner had paid a high price two or three years before, was under my eye a short time since. 
After looking at him, I asked to see the lambs gotten by him the preceding year. The owner 
had none to show. He had not used him "because, &c," but had used a ram of compara- 
tively insignificant appearance. In the face of such a fact, all the excuses in the world would 
not tempt a sensible man to give $10 for a brute which cost over $200. 

f At page 135. 



98 

observation and intellect, not the bungling process which igno- 
rance and folly are to stumble on. 

A ram of no extraordinary individual qualities is sometimes 
found to be a remarkable sire. He who obtains one of these 
highly valuable sires, should cling to him as he would to gold, 
whether individually he ranks in the first or second class. This 
"marking" property is sometimes carried so far that a familiar 
and observing eye will promptly detect its effects in a strange flock, 
picking out every animal got by the particular ram, and even 
picking out his descendants, if bred among each other, for all sub- 
sequent generations. 

Present Course of Breeding in the United States. 

I shall introduce this topic with the following pregnant words 
from a letter recently received by me from an observing manu- 
facturer. He writes : 

" If I had time I should hesitate to attempt to answer your interroga- 
tories, for the reason that the interests of wool-growers and manufactu- 
rers from present stand-points are conflicting- and will conflict so long as 
the grower can sell grease and tar and yolk and oil at same price as wool. 
Our farmers have no desire to learn how little wool they sell ; they pre- 
fer to be instructed in the secret of adding dirt and unwashed tags and 
dung-locks covered with fleece and wound with two to four ounces of 
rope yarn called twine." 

This is a fair statement of the case on both sides, only the 
writer should have added that in many cases farmers have inten- 
tionally and greatly lowered the quality of the wool itself in 
order to get more weight. I have already clearly taken the 
ground that medium wools are more profitable than the finest for 
general production in our country ; but is it not a pity to see the 
good, even, true, elastic, sound and soft wool which the American 
Merino inherited from his Spanish ancestors, degraded in every 
particular — put on a par in value with half-blood wool — -mixed 
with hair and jar — and all this done intentionally ? Yet who 
is to wonder at it and at the additional commixture of filth and 
rope yarn, if the wool buyer will pay within three or four cents 
a pound as much for this compound of abominations as for good 
clean wool ! 

And there is another party who is found quite as ready to 
encourage this line of breeding and management as the manufac- 
turer, namely, the ram buyer. Does he inquire what amount of 
good, well-washed, clean wool is produced by the animal he wishes 



99 

to purchase ? By no means. He only wishes to ascertain what 
aggregate of wool, yolk and dirt can be sheared from it and called 
a fleece. He has two objects in view. He wants a ram sur- 
charged with yolk for the purpose of breeding up a flock sur- 
' charged with yolk, and he wants one whose weight of fleece he 
can boast of and perhaps publish, for he has some eye on becom- 
ing a ram seller himself by-and-by. He has learned that these 
highly yolky rams greatly increase the weight of fleece when bred 
with a dry-wooled flock, and he strives therefore to make his 
flock as yolky as possible. He has not learned that beyond a 
certain point this source of increased weight prevents a further 
and still attainable increase of weight. 

Here, too, the manufacturer is responsible, for the same means 
which would correct illegitimate wool-growing would correct 
illegitimate breeding. 

Whence arises this want of discrimination in prices on the part 
of our manufacturers — this strange abnegation of their own real 
interests ? We have no more honorable or intelligent class of 
business men. I believe none see more clearly or deplore so 
deeply the present course of things. It is the result of a system 
almost forced on them by circumstances, and from which it is not 
easy to escape. Our farmers do not and will not send their wools 
unsold to market. The depot system was tried and failed. 
Americans choose to do their own bargaining. There is but now 
and then a locality where there is wool enough to pay for sending 
an experienced agent to it, and to each scattering lot of wool 
within it, and the same agent could not traverse a large region 
of country before the clip of the year would be picked over and 
the most desirable lots bought in by other purchasers. Accord- 
ingly to get an even chance to buy from first holders, an estab- 
lishment which works up great quantities of wool must have an 
army of agents promptly at work as soon as shearing is over ; 
and for the reason already stated, local agents must be princi- 
pally relied on. A portion of these are excellent judges of wool, 
but where the demand is active, inexperienced ones are necessa- 
rily employed. To keep his agents duly informed, and to protect 
himself from their indiscretions, the principal, from time to time, 
sends out prices which are not to be exceeded. The agent works 
for a commission, and is of course anxious to make large pur- 
chases. If the competition is to be active, a scramble commences 



100 

at shearing time. Three or four or half a dozen agents start 
out from every village. Relying more on the reputation of each 
flock than on a business-like inspection of the quality and condi- 
tion of the wool, the least experienced agents buy most rapidly, 
and then rush along eager to keep the lead of or again repass 
other agents whose horses are smoking on the same road. The 
excitement increases. All wools worth within ten or fifteen cents 
of the maximum price are dragged up within two or three cents of 
it; heavy yolky wools are purchased at about the same price with 
clean ones; in short, scarce a shadow of judgment is employed.* 

This system operates most injuriously on the producers of the 
best and cleanest wools who do not live near good markets. The 
maximum price is a Procrustean bed to which they must be cut 
off, though their neighbor has been stretched to its length ! If 
they refuse to sell when all their neighbors are selling, they have 
reason to fear no more buyers will come in to pick up half a dozen 
scattering small lots in a whole county. So they often reluctantly 
succumb and get only two or three cents more on the pound than 
other men whose wool is fifteen per cent, coarser and fifteen per 
cent, dirtier. This soon drives them out of wool-growing or into 
growing coarse, dirty wools. 

I fear that the manufacturer has looked with rather more tol- 
eration on this system, because sometimes perhaps he thus gets 
enough good wool under price to offset overpayments on bad and 
dirty wools. However this may be, one thing is certain, that if 
he continues to permit the sacrifice of friends for the benefit of 
enemies, he will within a few yoars not have enough of the for- 
mer left to keep up the present equipoise in his over and under 
payments. The soap sheep, as they should be called, are rapidly 
spreading everywhere, and farmers seem to wash their wool more 
and more poorly. 

Am I asked what practical remedy can be adopted ? It is not 
easy to point it out. But I have always believed that if each 

* A farmer gave me an amusing instance of this. His wool was just off. He stood in his 
barn door, and saw two agents approaching with " fast nags." The first one rushed into the 
barn and asked the price of the clip, and it came within his maximum. He asked where the 
wool whs, and was told it was in a dark granary. "Never mind," said he, "I can tell just 
as well by feeling." So he stepped into the granary, touched a few fleeces, took the farmer's 
offer, jerked out $25 to " bind the bargain," sprang into his sulky and was off in a whirlwind 
of speed. What the seller thought remarkable was, that he could feel wool so well through 
his black kid gloves which he forgot to take off while in the barn ! And he had never handled 
the wool before. 



101 

manufacturer would select Lis regions for purchase, buy in those 
regions every year, and employ a few trusty and experienced tra- 
veling or local agents, tied down by no maximum price which 
disregards quality and condition, instructed to buy the different 
qualities* and pay for each the fair market price, he would soon 
acquire his circle of customers, who, for safety and from motives 
of policy, would wait a reasonable time for his agents. At least 
this would be the case with holders of prime lots, and there 
would be no scramble and overpaying for inferior lots by them- 
selves. There is nothing chimerical in this idea, certainly, when 
it is notorious that some manufacturers already practice on it 
successfully, and that much of the other produce of the country 
is bought and sold in that way. 

Substantial wool merchants planted in each wool-growing 
region, would afford a vast relief from the present system to the 
producers of good wools. 

In respect to selling an outrageous excess of yolk and dirt for 
wool, because somebody will buy it, I shall raise no questions of 
casuistry ; but whether known or unknown to the purchaser, it 
should be below the aim of the elevated breeder. If we cannot 
breed the admirable domestic animals which have been given to 
us, without purposely alloying and degrading them, let us aban- 
don them and turn to other occupations. 

Suggestions as to the Future or Pine Wool Husbandry in 
our Country. 

I am strongly impressed with the opinion that the production 
of mutton, has been too much diregarded as a concomitant of the 
production of wool. Near large meat markets, mutton is the 
prime consideration and wool but the accessory ; remote from 
such markets, the converse of the proposition is true. But it 
does not follow in either case that the secondary object is to be 
unnecessarily neglected. 

The increase in the numbers and in the early maturity of sheep, 
enables England to support a vastly larger population than it 
possibly could have done 100 years ago. It is hardly too much 

* If it be said a single manufacturer does not want all the different qualities, let him, in 
regions where little is grown, buy all in order to keep his customers and his region to himself, 
and re-sell those he does not need. In regions where larger quantities are grown, different 
buyers would find room, and they might buy through the same agent. 



102 

to say that the continued sustenance of its people and the fertil- 
ity of its soil depend upon these animals. England proper, with 
an area of 50,922 square miles, has thirty millions of sheep. 
Without these, its soils could not be maintained in their present 
productiveness, and its population of 17,000,000 supplied with 
animal and vegetable food. It is now a conceded fact that an 
equivalent result could not even approximately be obtained by 
the substitution of any other animals. 

It is not safe in a country of vast territory and sparse popula- 
tion, like our own, to decide economic questions exclusively by 
English analogies and modes of reasoning. But in our own older 
Northern States, we are making some advance toward English 
conditions, at least in the circumstance of having a large class 
who are not agricultural producers ; and we shall continue to 
make nearer approaches in that respect. 

We read much of the traditional "roast beef" of England, but 
mutton now is the favorite animal food of her luxurious classes 
and the cheapest animal food of her laboring classes. The same 
tastes and economic considerations are beginning to obtain a 
rapid prevalence in this country. Every experienced meat pro- 
ducer knows that a pound of well fatted mutton can be grown 
more cheaply than a pound of any other well fatted meat. And 
our consumers are discovering that it is as palatable and nutritious 
as any other kind of animal food, and wastes materially less in 
cooking than beef.* The choicest qualities now command higher 
prices in our markets than the choicest qualities of beef. Its 
consumption is rapidly increasing in citiesf and also in small 

• The Report on Sheep Husbandry made to the Mass. Board of Agriculture in 1860, by a 
committee appointed by that body, thus condenses the result of various experiments on this 
subject: "English chemists and philosophers, by a series of careful experiments, find that 
100 lbs. of beef, in boiling, lose 26^ lbs., in roasting 32 lbs., and in baking 30 lbs. by evapo- 
ration and loss of soluble matter, juices, water and fat. Mutton lost by boiling 21 lbs., and 
by roasting 24 lbs.; or in another form of statement, a leg of mutton costing raw, 15 cents, 
would cost boiled and prepared for the table, 18^ cents a pound ; boiled fresh beef would, at 
the same price, cost 19;} cents per pound, sirloin of beef raw, at 16^ cents, costs roasted 24 
cents, while a leg of mutton at 15 cents, would cost roasted only 22 cents. — (See Secretary's 
Report, p. 97.) 

f The Report just quoted from states that, "at Brighton (near Boston), on the market day 
previous to Christmas, 1839, two Franklin county men held 400 sheep, every one in the mar- 
ket, and yet so ample was that supply, and so inactive the demand, that they could not raise 
the market half a cent a pound, and finally sold with difficulty;" that "just twenty years 
after that at the same place, on the market day previous to Christmas, 1859, five thousand four 
hundred sheep changed from the drover to the butcher." (Sec'y's Report, p. 96). This is 
but an example of the general change. It has not been produced so much by increase of popu- 
lation, as by a change in the habits of our population. 



103 

inland local markets and on farms, because prime lamb or mutton 
can always be supplied in the latter places, whereas meat from 
large well fatted beeves cannot be, unless in cold weather, as 
such animals make more meat than can be disposed of unsalted 
in such situations. 

Consequently vast droves of grade sheep from the Northwest- 
ern States traverse New York from midsummer to the approach 
of winter, directly for our Eastern cities, or to be sold in their 
vicinity for feeding. 

Why not meet a large part of this demand, now supplied from 
abroad, with our full blood Merino sheep? Even the epicurism 
of England has decided that this breed produces prime mutton. 
Sir Joseph Banks, in a report made in 1802, says: "Experience 
has demonstrated already, both at Windsor and Weybridge (the 
royal residences), that Spanish mutton is of the best quality for 
a gentleman's table." Mr. Wilson, the present Professor of Agri- 
culture in the University of Edinburgh, in a recent excellent 
paper on "The various breeds of Sheep in Great Britain," fur- 
nished by him to the Royal Agricultural Society's Journal,* says: 
" They (the Merinos), are hardy, and not more subject to disease 
than our other breeds ; they thrive very well on moderate keep, 
and may be fed up to 110 to 120 pounds weight at two years old ; 
the mutton is considered to be of very good quality." 

The report of Tessier and Hazard made to the Institute in 
France, in the year eight of the Republic, shows that the same 
opinion prevailed even thus early in France. They say : " The 
experiments we had formerly made in feeding of Spanish sheep 
have not been fully detailed. It has been undeniably proved 
that all those animals were fattened, and their flesh was at least 
as delicate as that of any other breed of sheep." Yarious French 
writers confirm these views. 

It is to be remembered that in England the Merino mutton had 
to encounter long established and obstinate prejudices. Its peo- 
ple were accustomed to carcasses of a particular form, fat laid on 
in a particular way, and more of it in proportion to the lean 
meat than the Merino readily takes on. 

On the other hand, the great body of Americans are neither 
accustomed to, nor do they choose, excessively fat fresh meats of 



* Vol. 16. It is republished in the Transactions of this Society, 1857, p. 219. The extract 
I make will be found at p. 239. 



104 

any kind, and particularly mutton. Most of them after attempt- 
ing to eat well cooked New Leicester or Dishley mutton, with 
two and a half or three inches of outside fat, turn away from it 
with loathing, or eat only the leaner parts. Yet the English 
factory operative or farm laborer finds just what he wants in that 
mutton, because its fat will in soups, &c, convert a large amount 
of vegetables into more palatable and nutritious food, and thus 
it will go further in imparting the effects of animal food than 
any other meat. 

The meat of the Merino when well fattened and properly treated,* 
is juicy, short-grained, high-colored and well flavored. In all 
these particulars American taste adjudges it superior to the meat 
of the English long-wooled sheep. Though the scarcity and value 
of full blood Merinos have prevented many of them from appear- 
ing in our markets, the grades have always been favorites with 
the butcher and consumer. The former finds that they weigh 
well for their apparent size and get to market in excellent con- 
dition. There is not a drove that sweeps from the plains of the 
northwest that does not exhibit a sprinkling of this blood, and 
if they are merely grass fed, the twenty fattest and least travel- 
worn sheep in the drove will usually be found those which, by a 
little darker tinge of their wool and its greater thickness and 
" squareness on the ends," betray more Merino blood. 

Those people who pay such prices in our cities for South Down 
lambs in February and March, are not perhaps aware they are 
paying for grade Merinos. Ewes having no Merino blood do not 
allow themselves to be impregnated (that is, generally and with 
regularity) early enough in autumn to produce these lambs. The 
grade Merino ewes are bred to the South Down ram, which gives 
the offspring additional size and the dark-colored legs which 
satisfy fashionable purchasers.! 

* A portion of our population cook and eat mutton as soon as it is killed ! 

] Samuel Thome, Esq., of Dutchess Co., one of the most intelligent and successful breed- 
ers in our State, writes me on this subject : 

" The sheep purchased for breeding market lambs are usually the ordinary Ohio Merinos, 
sometimes bought from the droves as they arrive, and sometimes from the farmers who have 
kept them over one season. I always prefer the latter, the difference in price alone caus- 
ing me to purchase the former. When selecting them, the point of the greatest importance is 
to get good milkers, that governing the choice more than anything else, as the object is to get 
prime early lambs. When there has been a chance to select ewes with a cross of either of the 
mutton breeds, I have always availed myself of it, though the difference in price between 
them and the ordinary ones is generally too great to make it as profitable. All things being 
equal, large sheep are of course preferable to small ones. Ewes with a strong tincture of 



105 

The full blood Merino produces as good mutton as the ordinary 
country and western Merino grade, if killed as young and in as 
good condition. I have never discovered that it did not fatten 
as easily. It costs no more, in proportion to weight of carcass, 
to keep it. Its wool is worth from a third to a half more per 
head. Wherever, therefore, it is profitable to grow the common 
grade sheep, partly for mutton and partly for wool-growing pur- 
poses, it is more profitable to grow full blood Merinos. In the 
State of New York we could, by the substitution of fine, heavy 
fleeces for those now carried by our grade sheep, profitably grow 
200 per cent more of mutton in the wool-growing districts than 
we now do. 

I shall nowhere, however, be understood to advance the idea 
that it would be advisable in the mutton districts proper (where 
access to a good market is quick and cheap) to substitute the 
Merino for the best English mutton varieties. Though I am not 
prepared to speak from adequate experience on that point, the 
tenor of reliable testimony would seem to be clearly the other way. 

For mutton purposes the Merino can promptly and readily be 
rendered more valuable than it now is without a diminution of 



Merino blood take the ram with more certainty early in the season than those deeply crossed 
•with the mutton breeds. It is, however, no advantage to have the lambs come too early, as 
they do not bring so large a price before as they do in the regular season. My own ewes are 
turned with a South Down ram the 1st of September, thus bringing the lambs the first part of 
February. They are made to grow and fatten as rapidly as possible, and are turned off to the 
butcher when they reach 40 pounds in weight. They are thus all disposed of by the 1st of 
June, and the ewes have the entire summer to fatten in. The sheep are bought usually a few 
weeks before the ram is to be turned with them, and have cost from $2.50 to $3.00 each. They 
are kept upon hay alone until just before the lambing time, when a daily feed of turnips is 
given. After the lambs come they are given also a feed of meal or bran slop. A place is 
partitioned off for the lambs, and they are regularly fed. The feed going directly to the lamb, 
makes growth of fat with more profit, in my opinion, than when given through the mother's 
milk. I cannot say with any certainty what the percentage of increase with my common sheep 
has been, as when possible to find any one to take a twin lamb, it is always given away, that 
its mate may have the better chance — one good one bringing in the early season a correspond- 
ing price, when poor ones cannot be at all disposed of. They never, however, average less than 
100 per cent, of sale sheep. * * * The lambs go to market from two and a half 
to three months old, and have, of course, at that early age to be in fine condition to bring the 
price they should do, or in fact even to meet a sale. My own have always averaged me $5 per 
head, bringing more when first sent off, and less later in the season. The ewes having only to 
provide for themselves during the summer, are by fall in very good condition and require a 
very little grain (which is first fed to them as soon as the frost injures the grass) to fit them 
for a good market. They have always averaged $5 also. To this is to be added the fleece, 
when you will see the return has always been a good one. It, to be sure, costs more and 
requires more care and attention to fit lambs for the early market, but the extra price they 
bring and the better chance which is given the ewes to fatten by getting off their lambs so soon, 
much more than compensate." 



106 

the quality and quantity of its wool. It probably could not be 
made to assume so early a maturity as the New Leicester or the 
South Down, or their peculiar forms ; but Prof. Wilson has told 
us what the pure Merino will weigh at two years old, when fed 
as the other English breeds are which exhibit such marvellous 
earliness of maturity. Early feeding and early maturity have an 
inseparable connection, and those who have bred English New 
Leicester sheep, and fed them only hay and grass, and treated 
them as we treat our other sheep, have found that much of their 
early maturity has vanished. But without reference to this con- 
sideration, we have not, in a country so large in proportion to its 
population, and where it is so easy consequently to supply the 
demands of its meat market without killing animals at an early 
age, occasion, certainly in large portions of it, for the early ma- 
turity of animals so necessary in England, provided ours will pay 
well for the additional expense of longer keeping. 

I have, as already stated, kept Merino sheep more than thirty 
years. During all the vicissitudes of that period the fleeces of 
the flock (without counting those of wethers which I have never 
kept in any considerable number) have averaged over two dollars 
a head per annum. On the best lands of the State it now costs 
about two dollars a head annually to keep Merino sheep. Any 
one, then, is sure of his lambs and manure as clear gain. Wethers 
of the same flock would produce fleeces worth about three dollars, 
and the clear gain on them annually would be a dollar a piece 
and the manure. 

The object of keeping sheep is to convert the vegetable pro- 
ductions of the farm into the most money and the most manure. 
Under the circumstances I have stated, and 'in regions where wool- 
growing is the primary object, this is as well done by animals 
of longer as of shorter lives. The truth is, nobody could afford 
in this country to kill his Merinos at two years old, if they were 
perfectly matured and fit for the butcher at that age. 

Nor do I believe the Merino could readily be made to assume 
that form which, like the most perfect New Leicester or South 
Down, puts every ounce of meat on the part where it is nomi- 
nally most valuable. At all events, I should decidedly object to 
tampering seriously with its present best form. How many Ameri- 
can purchasers, in looking for a sweet, juicy piece of mutton, are 
very careful to examine the angle of the rump, or study the exact 



107 

taper of the thigh, provided there is nothing specially defective 
in the shape ? Are there not little shapeless breeds of mountain 
sheep in Wales whose mutton outsells that of the South Down ? 
Are there not little, hardy, round, mountain cattle in Scotland 
whose beef is chosen before that of the rectangular Short-Horn ? 
These refinements are very well in theory and doubtless of some 
practical value, but they are not in our markets essential to the 
saleableness of mutton, which the great body of the American 
people already prefer to that of the improved English long-wooled 
breeds, and constantly eat, believing it to be South Down mutton 
or other of equal quality. 

The only change which is necessary or desirable to make in 
the form of the Merino, to improve it as a mutton sheep, is the 
same which it requires to improve it as a wool bearing sheep, 
viz. : to convert the flocks which now deviate from that stand- 
ard, into low, round, hardy, easily kept sheep. Good lungs, good 
health and good animal vigor will alike promote the secretions 
which produce meat and wool. And in the wool growing regions 
generally, I should not even consider it expedient to seek to 
increase the present size of what may be termed good sized 
American Merinos. 

The wethers may at some future day be turned off at two years 
old, under a system of feeding analogous to the English, but it is 
doubtful whether this will be found most profitable. Prime full 
blood ewes will probably never be turned off before they are six 
or seven; indeed, until their number is enormously increased, 
they never will be turned off at any ago to the butcher. They 
have twice or three times the longevity of the improved English 
breeds, in which early maturity is, indeed, the precursor if not 
the cause of an equally early decline. Merino ewes not unfre- 
quently raise good lambs at fourteen or fifteen years old, and the 
dam of the once famous "Robinson ram," I am informed had a 
lamb in her twenty-second year. 

In regions sufficiently accessible to market, it may become 
ultimately the most profitable way of disposing of full blood 
ewes, to adopt Mr. Thome's system with them; raise February 
lambs and fatten off the ewes in the fall when they are from six 
to eight years old. Older ewes should be allowed to produce no 
lambs the season they are to be fattened. 

One more question remains in regard to our future. It costs 



108 

twice as much to keep a sheep in New York as on the plains of 
the Northwest, and four times as much as on the prairies of Texas. 
Can we continue to bear up under this competition? The same 
question may as well be put in regard to most of the principal 
agricultural necessaries of life — for the difference in the cost of 
production is equally great in regard to them — and several of 
them, too, are as portable as wool and more portable than mut- 
ton. Do the New England farmers get a poorer living than they 
did before the competition of the twice as valuable lands of New 
York opened close upon them? Are prices lower in New York 
since the vast West and Northwest became populated farming 
lands ? 

The increase of the non-producers has more than kept pace 
with that of the producers ; and nearness to market, the conse- 
quent ability to take advantage of its fluctuations, the greater 
certainty of finding ready sales, and the lesser cost and risk of 
transportation, give the cultivator of our New York lands advan- 
tages over the cultivator of remote and cheap ones, which tend 
in a considerable degree to equalize their profits. Were this 
otherwise, what help is there for us ? Can we let our costly lands 
lie idle because there are cheaper ones in the West and South? 
The only question with us is what staples we can grow most pro- 
fitably. 

Besides, on our grain-growing soils, at least, sheep are an abso- 
lute necessity of good farming. The growing of wheat, clover 
seed, &c, cannot be carried on economically and systematically 
without some depasturing and manure-producing animal. For 
both of these purposes, the sheep is a vastly more profitable 
animal than any other. Mr. Johnson, of Geneva, and Gen. Har- 
mon, of Wheatland, two as good wheat farmers as there are in the 
State, have thrown a flood of light on this subject by their experi- 
ments and their writings.* Leading clover-seed raisers assure me 

* Since the above was written, I have received a letter from Mr. Johnson on the subject. 
He says that " sheep and wheat farming ought to go hand-in-hand in this country," that 
what "he has made in the last forty years has been in a large proportion by sheep." He has 
" fed (fatted) sheep in winter for over thirty years, and with the exception of 1841-2 they 
have always paid the cost of feeding, and some years left a handsome profit." That is to say, 
for every year but one, during that period, he has converted the hay, grain, &c, of his farm 
into manure on the farm, and got back the full price of those products and cost of feeding; 
and in some years he has done better than this. "His profits have been better since 1840 
when he commenced wintering on straw and oil cake or grain. After 1846 he kept no regular 
flock, but bought them in the fall and sold them usually in March or April. In some instances 
he held them until after shearing but found that he seldom did as well as by selling earlier." 



109 

that they must have sheep to carry on that culture profitably. 
Sheep would be more profitable than cows on a multitude of the 
high, thin-soiled dairy farms of our State ; and every person who 
has kept the two animals ought to know that sheep will enrich 
such lands far more rapidly than cows.* On the imperfectly 
cleared and briery lands of our grazing regions, sheep will more 
than pay for their summer keep, for several years, merely in clear- 
ing and cleaning up the land. They effectually exterminate the 
blackberry (Rubus villosus et trivialis), and raspberry (Rubus 
strigosus et Occident alls), the common pests in such situations, and 
they banish or prevent the spread of many other troublesome 
shrubs and weeds.f They also, unlike any other of our valuable 
domestic animals, exert a direct and observable influence in ban- 
ishing coarse, wild, poor grasses from their pastures and bringing 
in the sweeter and more nutritious ones.J 

Gen. Harmon, and I think a majority of wheat farmers who have sheep, prefer keeping a 
permanent breeding flock. This is a question of convenience — depending upon incidental 
considerations which this is not the place to discuss. 

* If milch cows are not returned to their pastures at night in summer, or the manure made 
in the night is not returned to the pastures, the difference in the two animals in the particular, 
named in the text, is still greater. Even grazing cattle kept constantly in the pastures, and 
whose manure is much better than that of dairy cows, are still greatly inferior to the sheep in 
enriching land. The manure of the sheep is stronger, better distributed, and distributed in a 
way that admits of little loss. The small round pellets soon work down among the roots of the 
grass, and are in a great measure protected from sun and wind. Each pellet has a coat of 
mucus which still further protects it. On taking one of these out of the grass, it will be found 
the moisture is gradually dissolving it on the lower side, directly among the roots, while the 
upper eoated surface remains entire. Finally, if there are hill tops, dry knolls, or elevations 
of any kind in the pasture, the sheep almost invariably lie on them nights, thus depositing 
an extra portion of manure on the least fertile part of the land, and where the wash of it will 
be less wasted. The manure of the milch cow, apart from its intrinsic inferiority, is deposited 
in masses which give up their best contents to the atmosphere before they are dry enough to 
be beaten to pieces and distributed over the soil. 

f Two years since I hired forty acres of pasture, five or six of which were partly overrun 
with blackberry and black and red raspberry bushes. I stocked the land heavily with sheep. 
The next year almost every bush was dead, most of them apparently untouched by the sheep, 
certainly bearing no marks of having been stripped of their bark. I had not dreamed of the 
.sheep effecting anything like such a rapid and wholesale extermination; but it was generally 
attributed to them, and no other cause for it could be even conjectured. Many of the bushes 
had been peeled by the sheep, and the extremities, buds, flowers, &c, nipped off. Sheep will 
frequently attack the elder (Sambucus Canadensis et pubescens) at particular periods of the 
year. Indeed the tender leaves and buds of few bushes escape them. They attack some 
weeds, but banish more of them by manuring the land and increasing the growth of grass, so 
that the weeds are run out. Where the Canada thistle (Car duns arvensis) is not tall and 
rank sheep will generally keep it from becoming so, where the land is not verj' rich, by nipping 
off the tops and the flowers. I do not know however that it meddles at all with the common 
thistle (C. lanceolatus). 

f They effect this principally through their superiority as manuring animals. I have used 
the term "valuable" domestic animals, fori suppose the goat would probably produce the 
same effect with the sheep, in these particulars. 



110 

Yet dairying is wholly driving out wool growing in the grazing 
portions of our State, and grazing cattle are preferred to sheep 
on probably a majority of our grain farms. The remarkable 
decrease of the latter in proportion to our population is made 
apparent by the following table compiled from the United States 
and State censuses. Mr. Kennedy, Superintendent of the United 
States Census office, has kindly furnished me with statistics of 
the census of 1860, in advance of their official publication : 

Year. Number of sheep. Pounds of wool. Population. 

1840 5,118,777 9,845,295 2,428,921 

1845 4,505,369 13,864,828 2,604,495 

1850 3,453,241 10,071,301 3,097,394 

1855 2,630,203* 9,231,959 3,466,212 

1860 2,617,855 9,454,473 3,880,728 

The State census of 1845 gives separate returns of sheep over 
and under one year old, and those over one year old are alone 
placed in above table ; for if lambs were included we should get 
no idea of the average number of the year or the average weight 
of fleeces- The annual number of lambs does not, however, equal 
the number killed, driven out of the State, or which die from dis- 
ease, for otherwise the aggregate number of our sheep would not 
be steadily decreasing. The United States census of 1850 and 
1860 gives only sheep one year old and over ; but the State cen- 
sus of 1855 gives the entire number of sheep without respect to 
age, and the number is 3, 217, 024. f If this number were placed 
in the table, it would convey a wholly erroneous impression of 
the actual number left in the State after the usual annual decrease 
from the causes above stated, a wholly erroneous impression of 
the average weight of fleeces, and it would be inconsistent with 
the rest of the table.J For these reasons I have given the num- 
ber of fleeces instead of sheep returned in 1855. This should 
approximately give the number of sheep in the State at shearing, 
time over one year old ; and as it would mainly exclude both the 
annual increase and decrease, it would unquestionably approach 

* Number of fleeces. 

•f I state this fact on the authority of Mr. Johnson, the Corresponding Secretary of the 
State Agricultural Society, who has examined the State census for me, a copy of it not being 
in my possession. 

% Except, perhaps, United States census returns of 1840, which I think were taken in the 
game way. 



Ill 

about as near to the average number of the year (though a little 
over it) as is arrived at by any other method.* 

Mr. Kennedy also prepared for me the following table, illustra- 
tive of the increase and decrease of certain leading branches of 
husbandry in the State of New York for a period of twenty years : 



1830. 1840. 1850. 1860. 

Horses No returns. ^1i,bi3 447,014 303,725 

Milch cows do ) 931,324 1,123,634 

Working oxen do }■ 1,911,244 178,909 121,702 

Other cattle do ) 767,406 727,837 

Sheep do 5,118,777 3,453,241 2,617,855 

Wool, pounds of do 9,845.295 10,071,301 9,454.473 

Butter do ) Noreturnsof 79,766,094 103,095,679 

Cheese do J these separate. 49,741,413 48,548,288 



Had the United States census of 1830 contained returns of 
sheep in the State, I have no doubt that a considerably greater 
decrease would have been indicated between that year and 1840 
than between 1840 and 1850. 

While the vastly higher priced lands of England carry nearly 
two sheep for every inhabitant, and within a fraction of 590 
sheep for every square mile of territory, it appears that New 
York has now less than one sheep to every inhabitant, and less 
than 56 sheep for every square mile; and it further appears that 
our sheep have steadily decreased for twenty years, and are still 
continuing to decrease. 

But this temporary decay of a great branch of husbandry 
admits, I think, of reasonable explanation. The history of the 
introduction of Saxon sheep has been given, their spread over the 
State and almost total absorption of the Spanish sheep between 
1824 and 1835, their ceasing to be remunerative after 1837, and 
their banishment from our farms in 1846. The great flocks of 
this State kept for wool-growing purposes anterior to 1840, were 
mostly of this blood, and when they were abandoned no other 
wool-growing sheep proper was left to supply their places. For 
the few improved American Merinos left in the country in the 
hands of breeders, comparatively large prices were asked. It was 

* After the amount of public money that is expended on the Federal and State censuses, it is 
vexatious to find their want of uniformity and glaring want of accuracy. Discrepancies are 
visible at every step. In looking at the returns of sheep from a single county, in the State 
census of 1855, (received from Mr. Johnson,) I find that in some towns the whole number must 
have been returned, in others the sheep which have been sheared, and in others, still, the 
number of fleeces given considerably exceeds the aggregate number of sheep of all ages ! It 
is certainly very unfortunate if the proper officials cannot hit upon suitable instructions for 
the marshals, express them in terms which men of common intelligence can understand, and 
find men of common intelligence to execute them. 

f This includes horses and mules. 



112 

not strange that our farmers, recollecting the overthrow of the 
Spanish Merinos in 1815, smarting under their recent losses with 
the Saxon, and discouraged by legislation which was prostrating a 
large branch of the woolen manufactures of our country, were 
wholly disinclined to venture on any new and costly experiments 
in fine wooled sheep. In fact that prejudice which should have 
been directed against visionary investments, injudicious manage- 
ment and vascillating legislation in respect to sheep, became 
directed against these valuable animals themselves.* 

Dairying took the place of wool growing. It proved a steadily 
and highly remunerative department of husbandry. Fashion, 
custom, and the farm training of youth tend rapidly to absorb 
the rural population in a prevailing and profitable pursuit. A 
generation has been growing up familiar with and attached to 
dairying and unacquainted with sheep husbandry. And it is not 
to be denied that the former, in proper situations, cannot be sur- 
passed in profit by any other rural pursuit. Besides, the dairy- 
ing region proper of the United States bears no proportion, in 
extent, to the wool-growing region, and therefore competition is 
less to be feared at home ; and as it cannot come from abroad, 
this interest has less to fear from legislation. 

The course of events for the last few years, however, has turned 
more attention throughout very large portions of our country to 
wool culture. It is time, in my judgment, when that culture 
should revive in this State. Our people must now be consuming 
annually something like 20,000,000 lbs. of wool raised outside 
our own borders. There is little doubt that instead of thus pay- 
ing out a large sum for the raw material of a necessary of life, 
which we have abundant room and time and materials to culti- 
vate for ourselves, we might to grow all the wool we need, and a 
surplus of 50,000,000 lbs. annually, without diminishing any 
other product which is even approximately as remunerative. 

Dairying, under the best circumstances, is far more profitable 
than sheep husbandry with inferior or middling animals; but 
the best sheep are as productive as the best cows, and require 
far less labor. No dairy farmer who has suitable land and fix- 

* The destruction caused among sheep by dogs, has also essentially contributed to the 
prostration of sheep husbandry. It not only has inflicted serious and, in the aggregate, enor- 
mous losses on our people, but it has of late years, as population and curs have increased, 
driven multitudes of persons out of sheep husbandry, and prevented still more from embark- 
ing in it. Proper legislation would do much to oorrect this evil. 



113 

tures for his business, is called upon to give up the avocation he 
best understands and sacrifice his fixtures and cattle to embark 
in a new pursuit, because he has found a single year of depressed 
prices. No farmer engaged in any highly remunerative hus- 
bandry should abandon it for another. - We want no more Me- 
rino manias! The proper increase in wool production can be 
attained by putting sheep on soils too poor for profitable dairy- 
ing, by weeding out useless and unprofitable horses, by substitut- 
ing sheep for grazing cattle on grain and other farms where they 
are most profitable, by depasturing lands now uselessly in timber, 
brambles, <fcc, and by raising proper crops to assist in cheaply 
wintering sheep.* 

And the growth of wool is peculiarly adapted to the pecuniary 
means and the circumstances of a portion of our rural popula- 
tion. Their capital is mostly in land. Hired labor is costly. 
Sheep husbandry will render all their cleared land profitably pro- 
ductive at a less annual expenditure for labor than any other 
branch of farming. By reason of the rapid increase of sheep, 
and the great facility of promptly improving inferior ones, they 
will stock a farm well more expeditiously, and with far less out- 
lay than other animals. f And, lastly, the ordinary processes 
and manipulations of sheep husbandry are simple and readily 
acquired. On no other domestic animal is the hazard of loss by 
death so small. It is as health} 7 and hardy as other animals, and 
unlike all the others, if decently managed, a good sheep can 
never die in the debt of man. If it dies at birth, it has con- 
sumed nothing. If it dies the first winter, its wool will pay for 
its consumption up to that period. If it lives to be sheared once, 
it brings its owner into debt to it, and if the ordinary and natu- 
ral course of wool production and breeding goes on, that indebted- 
ness will increase uniformly and with accelerating rapidity until 

* Sheep can be better and far more economically wintered on hay, straw, and turnips, or 
beets, than on clear hay. By raising these roots then the farmer can save considerable meadow 
land and increase his pasture, and thus the farm be made to carry more sheep. 

-j- Soon after shearing, 15 and sometimes 20 ordinary coarse grade ewes can be purchased for 
$30, the price of a dairy cow. On common keep, these will yield an average of three and a 
half pounds of washed wool at the next shearing, and so small a number of this class of sheep 
ought to raise 100 per cent, of lambs. If a choice Merino ram is used, the lambs, when 
grown, will shear at least a pound of wool more a head than their dams. And nearly an equal 
improvement can be made in the next generation. I have, more than once, witnessed a more 
rapid improvement than this. Even the common fair Merino rams of the country often increase 
the dam's fleece half a pound in the progeny for two or three generations, commencing on low 
grade ewes. 

8 



114 

the day of its death. If the horse or the steer die at three or 
four years old, or the cow before breeding, the loss is almost a 
total one. 

I am aware that it is easy to warm one's self up in praising a 
favorite pursuit, and to make a plausible show of reasons for 
what will not stand the test of experiment. But here we deal 
with fixed data. I refer you to the column of prices for which 
wool has sold in our country. If the cost of keeping sheep 
through the same periods is fairly estimated, it will be seen that 
with prime animals no other branch of agriculture has yielded 
better or more uniform returns on the capital invested. 

The examples of France, Germany and England all show that 
vastly higher priced lands than any in New York must carry 
sheep to be made profitable ; and in the two first named countries 
the wool producing sheep is preferred to the mutton sheep — 
though the growers are exposed to the competition of the far 
cheaper wool producing lands of Southern Russia and Hungary 
near by, and of the Cape of Good Hope, South America and 
Australia further off. 

Note. — I wish to express my own thanks and the thanks of the So- 
c'ety for which I have prepared this paper, to the various breeders, 
wool-growers, manufacturers, wool-merchants and brokers, officers of the 
Society, and other persons who have contributed statements and facts 
for it. These thanks are, in a special manner, due to George Livermore, 
Esq., of Boston, for his indefatigable labors in my behalf. 



APPENDIX. 



A. 

Tariff 0/I86I. 

Specific duty Ad va- 
Specific duty per square lorem 
per pound. yard. duty. 

Unmanufactured wool costing less than 18 
cents a pound at the place from whence 
exported . __ 5 

Same exceeding 18c. and not exceeding 
24c. a pound 3 

Same exceeding 24c. a pound 9 

Sheep skins with wool on, washed or un- 
washed , .. mm 15 

Carpets, Wilton, Saxony, Aubusson, Ax- 
minster patent velvet, tournay velvet 
and tapestry velvet, Brussels wrought 
by the Jacquard machine, medallion and 
whole carpets and carpetings, valued at 
$1.25 or under per square yard __ 40 

Same valued over fl.25 __..-__ r _ .. 50 

Brussels and tapestry Brussels do., printed 

on the warp or otherwise 30 

Treble ingrain and worsted chain Vene- 
tian do . _ 25 

Druggets, bookings, felt carpeting, &c, 

printed, colored or otherwise 20 

All others not otherwise specified .. _. 30 

Mats, rugs, screens, covers, hassocks, bed- 
sides and other portions of carpets, same 
as carpets of similar character 

All other mats, screens, hassocks and rugs, _ . _ . 30 

Woolen cloths, shawls and manufactures 
of every description, wholly or in part 
wool, not otherwise provided for 12 .. 25 



116 

Specific duty Ad ra- 

Specific duty per square lorem 

per pound. yard. duty. 

Flannels valued at 30c. or less per square 

yard .. .. 25 

Same valued above 30c. do., and all col- 
ored, printed or plaided, or compos'ed 
part of cotton or silk .. .. 30 

Hats of wool.. .. 20 

Worsted yarn valued at 50c. and not over 

$1.00 per pound 12 .. 15 

Woolen and worsted yarn valued over $1 

per pound 12 .. 25 

Same valued under 50c. not exceeding in 

fineness No. 14 .. 25 

Same exceeding in fineness No. 14 .. .. 30 

Ready-made clothing, wholly or part wool, 12 .. 25 

Blankets, wholly or part wool, value not 

exceeding 28c. per pound 6 .. 10 

Same valued above 28c. per pound, but 

not exceeding 40c _. 6 .. 25 

Same valued above 40c. per pound 12 .. 20 

Shawls of which wool is the chief compo- 
nent 16 .. 20 

Delaines, cashmere, muslin and barege de- 
laines, wholly or part wool, grey or un- 
colored, and other grey or uncolored 

goods of similar description .. .. 25 

Bunting, and all stained, colored or print- 
ed, and all other manufactures of wool 
or of which it shall be a component ma- 
terial, not otherwise provided for. .. .. 30 

The above act was approved March 2d, 1861. An act amend- 
ing it passed August 5, 1861, but none of the amendments of the 
sections in regard to wool or woolens, require to be mentioned 
here. It is anticipated that another tariff law will be enacted 
during the present session, 



117 
B. 

Value of Ohio Jleece wool in October of each year, from 1840 to 

1861. 

Fine. Medium. Coarse. 

1840 ... 45 36 • 31 

1841 - 50 45 40 

1842 Price all round, 33£a35 

1843 _.. 41 35 30 

1844 . 42 37 32i 

1845 36£ 30 26 

1846 „ 34 30 26£ 

1847 ' 33£ 29 25 

1848 ... 32 38 34 

1849 41 37 32 

1850 ... 47 42 36 

1851 41 38 32 

1852 49 45 40 

1853 55 50 43 

1854 41 36 32i 

1855 50 42 34 

1856 _ 55 47 37 

1857* 56 47 41 

1858 53 46 36 

1859 ... 58 47 35 

I860.. 54 47 37 

1861 45 45 50 

Prepared by Geo. Wm. Bond &f Co., Boston, Mass. 

Prices current of New York State fleece wools, from May 1st, 1855, 
to January 1st, 1862: 

Year. Month. Choice Saxony 

and Saxony. Full blood. 

1855. May . 45a48 37a40 

June 45 48 37 40 

July 45 48 37 40 

August.. 45 48 37 40 

September 45 48 37 40 

October... 46 49 40 42 

November .._,_ 46 49 40 42 

December 44 48 38 40 

1856. January. 44 48 38 40 

February 44 48 38 40 

March 47 50 40 42 

April 50 53 43 45 

Average 46a50 39a41 



We give the price in August, there having been no sales in October. 



118 

Choice Saxony 

Year. Month. and Saxony. 

May 50«53 

June 50 53 

July 50 53 

August 50 53 

September 50 53 

October 50 53 

November 53 56 

December 53 56 

1857. January 53 56 

February. 58 60 

March 58 60 

April.. .. 58 60 

Average _ 53«56 

May 56«58 

June.. 56 58 

July 50 53 

August 53 56 

September _ 53 56 

October _ _ 

November 

December 38 41 

1858. January 38 41 

February 38 41 

March 38 41 

April 39 43 

Average. 38a41 

May 39o43 

June 40 43 

July 40 43 

August 42 45 

September 43 46 

October 43 46 

November 46 48 

December 49 52 

1859. January 50 58 

February 50 58 

March 50 58 

April , 51 54 

Average 45a50 



Full blood. 

43a45 
43 45 
43 45 
43 45 
43 45 
43 45 
47 50 
47 50 
47 50 
52 55 
52 55 
52 55 



46a49 


49 


a52 


49 


52 


45 47 


47 


49 


47 


49 




31 


33 


31 


33 


31 


33 


31 


33 


32 


35 


33< 


*35 


32. 


z35 


33 


36 


33 


36 


37 39 


38 


40 


38 


40 


41 


43 


44 


46 


45 


47 


45 


47 


45 


47 


45 47 


40« 


42 



119 



Choice Saxony 

Tear. Month. and Saxony. Full blood. 

1859. May 51a54 45a47 

June 5154 45 47 

July 49 52 44 46 

August 49 52 44 46 

September 49 52 44 46 

October 50 54 45 47 

November.. _ 50 54 45 47 

December. 50 54 45 47 

1860. January.... 50 54 45 47 

February 50 54 45 47 

March 50 54 45 47 

April. 50 54 45 47 

Average _ 50a54 45a47 

May 49«52 44a46 

June 49 52 44 46 

July _ 49 52 44 46 

August 49 52 44 46 

September 50 53 45 47 

October 50 53 .45 47 

November. 50 53 45 47 

December 50 53 45 47 

1861. January 46 48 

February. 46 48 

March 46 48 

April 46 48 

Average 48«51 43a45 

May 46a48 

June , 46 48 

July 34 38 

August 34 38 

September 34 38 

October _ 40 45 

November 47 52 

December 47 52 

1862. January 47 52 

Average 42a46 40a44 



Prepared by Telkaiwpf fy Kitching, New York, Jan. 14, 1862. 



120 



Mr. James Roy, of the Watervliet Mills, West Troy, N. Y., 
furnishes the following list of average annual prices paid by 
that establishment for wool since 1852. The purchases include 
six or seven hundred thousand pounds per annum, and are made 
in New York, Ohio, Michigan and Vermont. 



1852 37^ cents. 

1853 48£ do 

1854 36£ do 

1855 364- 



1856, 



TO 



do 



394 do 



1857, 
1858 
1859. 
1860 
1861. 



41| 


cents 


34^ 


do 


441 


do 


45 


do 



33i do 



Mr. Faxton. of Utica, N. Y., sends me the following : 
Mr. Faxton : 

Below is actual sales made by me in September of each year, 
and though in many years great changes have followed, it is per- 
haps as fair a show of prices as can be given : 





Coarsest 


Finest. 






Coarsest. Finest. 


1848 


22 


35 


1855 




32 46 


1849 


25 


40 


1856 




35 48 


1850 


35 


52 


1857 




36 55 


1851 


32 


42 


1858 




30 45 


1852 


36 


53 


1859 




40 50 


1853 


42 


58 


1860 




40 55 


1854 


30 


40 


1861 
Yours 


truly, 
Jas. 


37£ 40 

Rockmer, Utica. 


January 15, 1862 













121 



C. 



The following is taken from a report of the Secretary of the 
Treasury in 1845 : 

Value of imports of woolens into the United States : 



Tear. Value. 

1821 $7,437,737 

1822 12,185,904 

1823 8,268,038 

1824 8,386,597 

1825 _, .... 11,392,264 



1826 

1827 
1828 
1829 
1830 



8,434,974 
8,742,701 
8,679,505 
6,881,489 
5,766,396 



Year. Value. 

1831 $12,627,229 

1832 9,992,424 

1833 13,262,509 

1834 11,879,328 

1835 17,834,424 

1836 21,080,003 

1837 8,500,292 

1838 16,512,920 

1839 18,575,945 



It was my intention to ascertain what proportion of the imports 
of unmanufactured wool fell below the dutiable price, but the 
scanty time afforded me has not permitted it. As a specimen, 
however, I append the following table compiled from reports of 
the Secretary of the Treasury : 



Imports of Wool. 



Av. imp'tsAv. imp"ts 
of 1837, of 1840, 
'38, '39. '41, '42. 



Imports < 
1843.* 



Imports of 
1844. 



Imports of 
1845. 



Imports c 
1846. 



Wool not costing to ex- 
ceed 7 cents a pound, 

Exceeding 7 cents a 
pound 



$558,458 
801,087 



$759,646 
1,004,312 



$190,35 
54,695 



$754,441 
97,019 



$1,553,789$1, 107,305 
136,005 26,921 



Total. $1,359,545$!, 763,958 $245,047 $851,460 $1,689, 794 $1,134, 226 



« The fiscal year 1842 ended on 30th September. Since then returns of imports and exports 
have been made up to 30th June. This year, therefore, embraces imports of nine months 
only, ending June 30, 1843, and subsequent years end 30th of June, 1844, 1845, and so on. 



122 



D. 

The Wool Press. 

This article has been so much improved recently, and that im- 
provement is so little known, that I am induced to call attention 
to it. Most wool-growers are acquainted with the excellent press 
previously in use, consisting of a trough about four feet long and 
ten or twelve inches in height and breadth, set on legs, with a 
stationary cross piece at one end and a movable one drawn 
towards it by a strap and lever with slits for twine, &c. This 
does up wool more rapidly and vastly better than any person can 
do it by hand. But in the case of large fleeces it requires too 
much weight applied to the lever for the operator conveniently 
to press it down and hold it down with one foot while standing 
with the other in a convenient place for tying up the fleece. 
Several contrivances were applied to remedy this difficulty, but 
finally the true one was hit upon by Mr. James Geddes, of Fair- 
mount, N. Y. By substituting a crank, ratchet wheel, pair of 
rollers, and the necessary straps in the place of the lever arrange- 
ment, even a small boy is strong enough to compress the fleece, 
and the ratchet wheel and dog will cause it to be held compressed 
as long as is wanted by the tyer ; the crank being then reversed, 
carries back the sliding cross-piece to the opposite end of the 
trough again. It is now apparently a perfect machine. No patent 
has been taken out for it. The machines are excellently manufac- 
tured by Storrs Wilber, of Fairmount, N. Y., and cost from $6 
to $7. If Mr. Wilber should leave, Mr. Geddes will doubtless see 
that another manufacturer takes his place, so that it would be as 
well to address to care of James Geddes. 



123 



E. 



Proportion of Wool to Meat in Sheep of Different Ages, 
Sexes and Sizes. 

The President of the State Agricultural Society, the Hon. Mr. 
Geddes, kindly drew out the following information for me, on the 
above heads : 

Pompey, Onon. Co., N. Y., January 27, 1862. 

Hon. George Geddes, Dear Sir: 

Yours of the 15th inst. was duly received, and it is with some 
considerable pleasure that we can reply so satisfactorily. 

Our flock consists of 180, of several grades, one-half to three- 
fourths Spanish Merino, and a portion of the largest one-fourth 
French Merino. The base of the flock, but a few years since, 
was Saxony. 

We sheared on the 26th and 27th of June last, and took the 
trouble to weigh every sheep and every fleece ; and to record it 
on the spot. They were sheared promiscuously, and we have 
taken the trouble to classify them for our own convenience, both 
by age and weight. The heaviest sheep weighed 133, the lightest 
43. The heaviest fleece weighed 9^, the lightest 3|. We sold 
our clip for 40c. it would have brought in six days after, 47 or 
48. We sold 24 of the heaviest wethers Oct. 1st for $95, and 24 
of the oldest ewes Nov. 1st for $60. 

We had about 50 lambs dropped, we raised 35. Some of the 
remainder died, but the most of them we killed. They had 
fleshy tumors on their necks, and we were told by many that it 
was owing to high keeping; we did not believe it then, and have 
since proved that it was transmitted by the sire. To construct 
the next to the last column (in subjoined table) we divided the 
carcass by the fleece, and to construct the last column, we added 
ciphers to the amount of wool and divided it by the gross weight. 
We conceived that to be the proper method. If it is not, it can 
readily be reconstructed, as we are confident that the weights in 
all other respects are absolutely accurate. You will not fail to 
notice that the 26 wethers in the first class four years old gave a 
greater percent, than those three years old, and those of from 
110 to 121 pounds in weight more than those above or below that 
weight. Those two exceptions comprise the same sheep. Were 
these two excluded, the column of percentage, would gradually 



124 

decrease from yearlings to four years old, and from 43 to 133. 
Were these four years old not subdivided, the percentage would 
be 5.58, and we do not know but that, if the classes above were 
subdivided in the same way it would be with similar results. If 
you can think of any way in which our data can be any more 
thoroughly elaborated please inform us, and we will do it with 
the greatest pleasure. 

Respectfully yours, 

Sweet Brothers. 

Classified by age; except those four years old which are subdivided 
by sex. The four year old ewes all had lambs, and 35 reared 
them. 



s 

(3 


Age. 


Sexes. 


i 
% 

o 


ii 


o 
o 

1 

s 


M 

S> >- 

bo d 

> ° 
<3 


5 

be 

Is 
H 


N 

1 = 
I" 


si 

g bO 

>- 5 

as ~ 
CM 


1 

1 




E 

e 

a 


s 

9 


32 
30 
51 
26 
41 


1 
2 
3 
4 
4 


19 

15 

9 

41 


11 
14 

42 
25 


2 
1 

1 


2, HO. 25 
2,508.37 
5,013.25 
2,921.13 
3,738.00 


1,991 
2,347 
4,700 
2,736 
3,557 


169.25 
161.37 
313.25 
185.13 
181.00 


62.21 
78.23 
92.15 
105.11 

86.75 


5.28 
5.37 
6.14 
7.12 
4.41 


11.11 

13.98 
14.10 
14.76 
19.65 


7.83 
6.43 
6.24 
6.33 
4.84 










180 


1 to 4 


84 


92 


4 


16,341.00 


15,331 


1,010.00 


85.17 


5.38 


15.17 


6.18 





Classified by 


v:c 


ght; in 


divisions of 


£en pounds each. 




c-i 










*5 
o 


bO , 


bO 


§ "3 


li 


c 


Weight of 




bO 




p 


1 1 


* g 




*s £ 


n 

| 


Division — 
from 


3 


o 
o 


1 

PQ 


1 


_bo| 


2 
.SP 


II 

> ° 


> ° 
< 


1! 

I 2 

Pi 


li 

g bO 


5 
14 


43 to 51 
50 to 61 








234 
803 


22 

68 


46.80 
57.35 


4.40 
4.85 


10.63 
11.80 


8.59 
7.80 


10 




4 




871 


20 


60 to 71 


14 


6 




1,427 


1,320 


107 


66.00 


5.35 


12.33 


7.49 


34 


70 to 81 


21 


12 


1 


2,742 


2,567 


175 


75.50 


5.14 


14.66 


6.38 


39 


80 to 91 


li) 


21) 




3,566 


3,355 


211 


86.00 


5.41 


15.87 


5.90 


34 


90 to 101 


11 


22 


i 


3,453 


3,252 


201 


95.64 


5.91 


15.42 


5.82 


18 


100 to 111 


4 


13 


l 


2,016 


1,905 


111 


105.83 


6.16 


17.16 


5.50 


11 


110 to 121 




10 


l 


1,353 


1.273 


80 


115.72 


7.27 


15.91 


5.89 


5 


120 to 134 




5 




657 


622 


35 


124.40 


7.00 


17.76 


5.32 


180 


43 to 134 


84 


92 


4 


16,341 


15,331 


1,010 


85.17 


5.38 


15.17 


6.18 



Note to the Messrs. Sweet's statement: The American Merino ram, whose measurements are 
given in Petri's table, weighed, in fair ordinary condition and with between nine and ten months 
fleece on, 122 lbs. He has yielded an unwashed fleece, of one year's growth, of 20 lbs., 12 
ozs. His wool is not unusually yolky, and he has very little external gum. Here, then, we 
have on a moderate estimate a pound of unwashed wool for less than five and one-half pounds 
of carcass. 



INDEX. 



-**- 



PAGB. 

ADAMS, SETH, his importation of Merinos . 21 

BREEDING, in-and-in 76-79 

principles of ...» 94, 95 

selection of rams for 96-98 

present course of in U. S 98 

causes of deterioration in 98-101 

CHAMBERLAIN, WILLIAM, his importation of Silesian Merinos 59 

Collins, D. C.j his importation of French Merinos 15 

character of his sheep , 56 

Crossing, between Merinos and other breeds 70 

between varieties of the Merino 67, 72-75, 80 

DUPONT DE NEMOURS, his importation of Merinos 21 

FOSTER, WILLIAM, his importation of Spanish Merinos 21 

GROVE, HENRY D., his importation of Saxon Merinos 34 

■weight of his fleeces 47 

HOUSING sheep in summer 90, 91 

Humphreys, David, his importation of Spanish Merinos 22, 23 

character of his sheep 24, 25 

JARVIS, WILLIAM, his importation of Spanish Merinos 26 

his course of breeding 27, 28, 40, 72 

LIVERMORE, GEORGE, his statements 21 

his table of wool prices 41, 43 

Livingston, R. R., his importation of Merinos 21, 22 

weight of his fleeces 14 

his course of breeding 53 

MERINO, AMERICAN, introduction into U. S 21, 29 

how received in U. S 30 

fall in prices of 32 

supplanted by Saxon Merinos 37 

it again supercedes the Saxon 47 

weights of fleeces of at different periods 48 

families of in U. S 49-53 

improvement in weight of fleece of • 55, 56 

compared with Saxon Merino 61 

compared with French Merino > • 62-67 



126 

MERINO, AMERICAN, crosses of with French Merinos 67 

compared with Silesian Merino 69 

crossed with other breeds 70 

crossing between families of 72-75, 80 

breeding in-and-in of 76-79 

carcass, skin and folds of 81 

fleece, fineness and evenness of •• • • 83 

trueness, softness, and style of wool of 84 

quality of mutton of 103-105 

used to breed early lambs from 104 

improvement of for mutton purposes 105-107 

proper age of to turn off 106, 107 

longevity of 107 

Merino, French, introduction into France 11 

how selected and bred there 12, 72 

rapid improvement Of in weight of fleece 12, 13 

characteristics of in 1827 14 

characteristics of at present 15, 16, 57, 72 

imported into U. S. 15, 16, 56 

character and treatment of in U. S • 57-59 

compared with American Merino 62-67 

crosses with American Merino 67 

where most valuable 69 

Merino, Saxon, introduction into Saxony 17 

course of breeding and treatment of there 17 

characteristics of in 1824. 17, 18 

subsequent improvement of 19 

prices of wool of in Germany 20 

introduction of into U. S 34, 35 

mania in regard to in U. S 37 

superceded by American Merino in U. S 47 

compared with American Merino 61 

crosses of with American Merino 80 

Merino, Silesian, introduction into Silesia 20 

introduction and character of in U. S 59-61 

compared with American Merino 69 

Merino, Spanish, its origin 4 

varieties of 5 

annual migrations of 5 

territorial classifications of 6 

families of, described 6 

appearance of as a race in 1800 7 

Petri's weights and measurements of 7 

form, fleece, etc., of 9, 10 

mode of washing of in Spain 10 

quality of wool of 11 

present deterioration of in Spain 15, 16 

importation of into U. S 21-29 

Mutton, production of with fine wool 101 

more cheaply produced than other meat 102 

wastes less in cooking than other meat 102 

increase in price and consumption of 102, 103 

American taste in respect to 103, 104 

NEW YORK, encouragement of to wool manufactures 30, 31 

manufactures of wool in, 1810 32 

its manufactures prostrated by peace of 1815 32 



127 

NEW YOKE, number of sheep to the square mile in 102 

increased price and consumption of mutton in 102 

comparative decrease of sheep husbandry in 110, 111 

■what portions of are adapted to sheep 113 

SHEEP, pampering of for sale, a fraud 92, 93 

necessity of in English agriculture 101 

necessity of in U. S 108 

when more profitable than dairy cows 109 

comparative value of in improving land 109 

number of, decreasing in New York 110 

situations where they should increase 113 

they never die in debt to man 113 

TAINTOR, JOHN A., his importation of French Merinos 15, 5G 

Tariff laws of U. S. on wool and woolens from 1789 to 1824 33 

from 1824 to 1861 36-40, 115 

WOOL, prices of in U. S. for 60 years 41-43 

exports and imports of 45, 121 

machinery for manufacture of in U. S 46 

decline in production of fine, in U. S 47 

chemical analysis of 64 

characteristics of, described 83, 84 

effects of yolk on 84 

profits of production of 106 

advantages of its culture ... 108-114 

prices of Ohio fleece 117 

prices current of in New York 117 

prices of, paid at Watervliet Mills, N. Y 120 

prices of, paid in Utica, N..Y 120 

press for doing up of 122 

proportion of to meat in sheep of different ages, sexes and sizes 123 

YOLK, different kinds of in wool 84 

chemical analysis of 84 

more of in some regions than in others 86 

uses of in wool 86, 87 

how far it should be propagated 87 

consequences of an excess of 87, 88 

effect of on wool after shearing 88 

cost of cleansing it out of wool 89 

how far its color is important 89. 



FINE WOOL 

SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 

BY HENRY S. RANDALL, LL.D., 

OF CORTLAND VILLAGE, N.T. 






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